The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (102 page)

“Of course we’ll stay, why would we not stay?” Grace sat on the edge of an old untended grave. “Hey, we should do something for this poor James Edward Gray, nobody’s weeded around him for years. Of course, we’re going to stay.”

Maggie was helping to remove some of the bigger dandelions from James Edward Gray’s resting place.

“People were wondering would you not find it all too dull for you here,” she said in a small voice.

“Heavens no, it’s fantastic. You want us to stay, Maggie? You don’t want us to go away, do you?” Grace’s beautiful face was troubled. She looked really anxious.

Maggie couldn’t remember why she had felt so upset yesterday evening as she had walked home along by the Fern, and how she had wished that the O’Neills had never come here.

She looked at the worried blue eyes of Grace O’Neill, and with a great big smile that went all over her face, Maggie Daly said, “Of course we don’t want you to go away, it’s great that you’re here.” And she meant it.

She meant it not just at that moment but for a long time. Like when they joined the fishing party which was waiting for them at the footbridge.

“Sorry,” Grace said casually, “I dragged Maggie off to show me the graves. You’re right, they’re fabulous. We’re going to try and smarten up James Edward Gray a bit.”

“Where’s he? In the corner near the wall is it?” Dara asked.

Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. Dara wasn’t a bit annoyed that Maggie had taken Grace away. People like Dara didn’t get annoyed, Maggie told herself. Only mean-spirited people like herself got jealous and possessive and annoyed. Grace was telling Michael that on consideration she wondered could he bait their lines with those lumps of bread they had been talking about yesterday; she said she thought it would be easier to learn on bait made from crusts and then she could progress to maggots later.

Dara was disappointed. She had a jar of maggots ready for threading onto hooks. But Michael said Grace was right, better get used to this kind first, because it was always easier to hand.

Grace flashed Maggie Daly a smile. Things were much easier than they seemed, the smile said.

   Kitty Daly thought that Mrs. Ryan wasn’t bad for a grown-up; at least she wasn’t a religious maniac like her own mother was. She was a woman you could talk to a bit.

“Do you think I could work for a bit in the bar, Mrs. Ryan?”

“No, Kitty, I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

“You’re too young. That’s one reason. We don’t need anyone. That’s another.”

“I’m almost fifteen. That’s not young.”

“I know it’s not.” Kate sighed. All this terrible sulking and mulish behavior probably lay ahead with her own Dara. “But it is too young for bar work. I suppose this is a silly question, but why couldn’t you work in your own shop?”

She took one look at Kitty’s face and decided that it was a silly question. The girl looked distressed.

“Did you want the money for something in particular?”

“Yes.”

“Well, maybe you could try to see if there is any other way of getting what you want. Like if it’s clothes, could you make them?”

“It’s hair, Mrs. Ryan.”

“Hair?” Kitty had the Daly curls, frizz really. There was nothing startlingly bad about the child’s hair. It was clean and neat, and a brownish reddish color.

“Yes, a good cut would make all the difference, and no matter what else Mrs. Walsh is she does know how to cut hair.”

Kate let the comment pass. No point in drawing an argument on herself with this difficult girl.

“Could you do a deal with her? Sweep up the hair from the floor, make people cups of tea, put the towels out to dry for two weeks, say, and then she might give you a haircut free?”

Kitty considered it without much pleasure.

“It wouldn’t be much fun.”

“No, but if she agreed it would get you the haircut.”

“Two weeks is an awfully long time.”

“True. I suppose you’d have to work out whether it’s worth it or not.”

Kitty thought a bit. Mrs. Ryan was a lot better than most people’s mothers. She didn’t say things like, your hair was fine the way it was, or, at your age I didn’t have the chance to go to hairdressers. She put her mind to the question properly.

“Yes, well I’ll give it a go,” she said ungraciously.

“Kitty.”

“Yes, Mrs. Ryan?”

“Do you want a hint?”

“All right.”

“If I were you, I’d tell Mrs. Walsh how much you admire her own hair, and the way she cuts other people’s, and you were wondering if you could make her a proposition. I’d be over-polite if I were you, because Mrs. Walsh is a very busy person with a lot on her mind, and she’d be quick to dismiss an idea unless it was put to her nicely.” Kate Ryan saw the defensive look on Kitty’s face, and hastened to say, “I mean, Kitty, I couldn’t care less if you shaved your head bald and painted the Irish flag on it. I think your hair is fine as it is, but I know what you mean about a good cut giving it a better shape. So you can take my hint if you like, or ignore it if you like. Now I must get along with my work.”

Kitty thanked her, less grumpily than she had been going to. And in fact it was a good idea. She would ask Mrs. Walsh straight away. Imagine Mrs. Walsh going to bed with men for money. It was unbelievable, but that is what she did. Everyone knew, but no one talked about it much. Imagine men paying to go to bed with anyone as old as Mrs. Walsh.

   Kerry O’Neill had no great hopes about his new school. He had gone there with his father for an unsatisfactory visit, and Father Minehan had marked out a certain amount of work that would have to be done. He had agreed that since Kerry was fifteen it would not be practical for him to learn the Irish language at this stage, but he would be expected to master enough of it to get the general sense of things Irish.

He was a forbidding-looking man, white, ascetic, with a nervous smile. He had managed to suggest more than once to Kerry’s father that the school, which was a very illustrious one, had fallen on hard times due to a massive and expensive rebuilding program. There was a building fund that would cripple the community eventually; they couldn’t raise the fees yet again this year, so they often had to rely on the generosity of those parents who were lucky enough to be financially secure to help in some of the extreme times of need.

Kerry had been quiet and respectful through most of the interview. At an early stage in the proceedings he realized that Father Minehan didn’t respond to charm. He walked admiringly around the old buildings and asked bright questions about the original building and the time that the order had first set it up.

“It’s only been here a hundred years. It’s not one of our older foundations,” Father Minehan had said a little testily.

“Don’t forget, I’m from the United States. That seems very old to me,” Kerry said with a smile.

Father Minehan softened then. Kerry had said the right thing.

Coming home in the car his father looked at Kerry.

“You handled that one well, son. Our sort of cleric, wasn’t he?”

Kerry didn’t join in what he considered his father’s all-men-together mode. “I think he was all right, he has a job to do.”

Patrick was annoyed. “What do you mean, he has a job to do?”

“Well, just that. He has to keep me in my place, arrogant young American know-it-all, trample me down a bit. He has to try to fleece you for his building fund. Irish-American: more money than sense, get him to sign a check.”

Patrick gave a genuine shout of laughter.

“It didn’t take you long to sum him up. Still, it’s got a great reputation. It’s one of the finest schools in Ireland.”

Kerry turned away to look out of the window; he knew what his father would say next, and he knew the tone he would say it in. Patrick was about to say that he got the poorest of educations in grade school and had to go back when he was twenty to learn more than reading and writing. He often said this. But he never got the response he was hoping for. Kerry O’Neill never once said that it certainly hadn’t made any difference, as Father had done so well. He never said anything at all.

   Grace, on the other hand, was looking forward to starting school. It was different for her, she told Kerry, she knew all her friends already, she would be in the same class as Dara and Maggie and Jacinta. They had told her all about the worst things, and how to get around Sister Laura. Grace was going to have to learn Irish, and Sister Laura had suggested she become familiar with the alphabet and a small amount of vocabulary before term began.

The others had been very helpful, although the boys had taught her a really rude phrase which she might easily have said unless Dara had told her what it meant. She had gotten her navy uniform in the big town, and even the plain skirt and jumper and the pale blue shirt which looked so dull and drained the color out of the other girls, could not take from Grace O’Neill’s healthy good looks. She bought a navy hair ribbon and tied up her golden curls.

She paraded with her school bag for her brother.

“How do I look?”

“Great.” His mind was elsewhere.

“Thanks a lot.”

“No, seriously, you do look great. You look older than you are.”

“Older in this?” Grace was disbelieving.

“Yes, you look much more grown up than all the other puddings here. Don’t let these fellows make any more rude remarks. You hear?”

“Oh Kerry, it wasn’t fellows telling rude remarks. It was Tommy and Liam and …”

“Just not anymore.”

Grace wished now she hadn’t told him. He didn’t understand how funny it had been.

“Sure, sure,” she said to placate him.

“You’ve no mother, Grace, and Father lives in his own world. Somebody has to look after you. That’s why I sound like an old bear, an old hen … whichever it is that does the clucking and fussing.”

“I think it’s a hen,” she laughed, and ran toward him to give him a hug. “It’s hens that fuss. It’s the bears that hug. You’re very good to me, Kerry.”

The door opened and Patrick came in.

“Is that your new uniform? You look fantastic; a real scholar,” he said admiringly.

Grace still had her arms around her brother’s waist.

“Kerry’s been setting me right, and giving me all kinds of good advice about going to school.”

Patrick looked pleased. He often wondered what the children talked about when they were on their own. They seemed quite content.

“I just thought someone should mark her card,” Kerry said with a note of insolence that Grace noticed too. She looked up at him anxiously, and let her arms drop.

“Good.” Patrick was easy and relaxed. “I’m glad you’re doing it. I’m afraid that I have too much faith in you pair; I think you were born knowing everything, being able to do everything. I don’t mark your cards enough, I suppose.”

“That’s a good complaint to have, Father.” Grace was hasty in her attempts to avert this scene, whatever it was.

She spoke quickly. “I hear so many people complaining about their parents who tell them this and order them to do that. You just stay as you are. Tommy Leonard says his father is at him night and day.”

“Not enough to get him to keep a clean tongue in his head,” Kerry said.

Suddenly Grace felt weary. “Look, fight if you want to, I’m not going to keep chatting. I think I’ll go to bed.”

The light had gone from her face. Both her father and brother looked stricken.

“I wasn’t fighting, Gracie, really,” Kerry said.

“Listen to me, honey, I couldn’t fight with anyone, not tonight, now that I see you all dressed up to go to your Irish convent school. My heart is so full, Grace. I wish, I wish so much …”

They knew what he wished. They knew that Father wished their mother were alive. But he didn’t say it. He just said that he wished things were different.

   Grace had met most of the girls who would be in her class and who lived in Mountfern. But there were quite a few from out in the country. When they saw the newcomer they were dazzled. At first they giggled a bit at the beautiful girl with the golden curls tumbling down from a topknot tied with a shiny navy ribbon. And they nudged each other at her American accent.

Sister Laura made a small speech of welcome at assembly and said that she knew the girls of Mountfern convent would be, as they always were, welcoming to a stranger in their midst and help her to feel at home. Dara whispered to Grace that this was all nonsense. There never had been a stranger in their midst before. Grace was the first one. Maggie saw Grace and Dara laughing together at assembly, and tried to stop this feeling that she was being left out of things.

Sister Laura was speaking about the school year that lay ahead. She had every hope that 1962-1963 would be a year that they would all remember for the amount of hard work they put into their studies. Even those who had no formal examinations this year would, it was hoped, show a diligence that would long be remembered in the establishing of the convent in Mountfern as a legend in the houses of the order. Sister Laura said that sister houses had been achieving a reputation for scholarship which had so far evaded Mountfern. Let 1962-1963 be the year that all changed, the year they emptied their minds of silliness and let the sun of learning shine in.

They stood there in the navy uniforms. Kitty Daly splendid with the new hairstyle which had caused Kerry O’Neill to say “You look nice. Did you change something about yourself?” and sang the hymn to Our Lady to mark the beginning of the new term. Kitty had put all silliness out of her mind and was concentrating heavily on the information that Kerry did not go to his boarding school for another week. Grace would be out of the way at school. If Kitty were to feign a terrible sickness and go home, they would never suspect her of malingering, not on the very first day of term. Then she could walk up as far as the Grange, and if that old bag Miss Hayes didn’t get suspicious, she should surely find a chance to run into Kerry. Sister Laura was right, start the year as you mean to go on.

Dara sang lustily as well. It had been a great summer holiday after all, in spite of all the changes at Fernscourt. She and Michael had said last night, as they sat on the window seat, that they wished they had somewhere to go, some special place still like that room they had in Fernscourt that was theirs. But wasn’t it funny that none of them ever wanted to go back and play in the ruins now? They had only been once with Grace and it was like going back somewhere that belonged to another part of their life. Mr. O’Neill had urged them to continue playing there, but things had changed, there were bicycles for one thing, and the fishing for another. And it was great to have someone as lively as Grace around. Maggie was a great friend, but she was very mousy, and always afraid of what would happen, and of someone objecting or getting annoyed. Grace hadn’t a fear in the world. She was magnificent.