The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (154 page)

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 realized she was in her slip and that her brassiere was open. She realized 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 improved 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 around 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 anytime 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 windowsill brightly colored 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.

Declan asked could
he
go to France next summer, he wouldn’t mind looking after children, it would be nice to have something younger than himself that he could boss around and give orders to.

Carrie asked if they ate everything raw—Jimbo told her he had heard that.

Mary Donnelly said she was pleased to hear that Frenchmen were not always making free with their attentions, as had often been reported.

Grace and Michael giggled at this and Kate and Dara exchanged glances. Mary had not been told about the discovery of Monsieur Vartin and Mademoiselle Stephanie.

It was marvelous to be back at home with everyone speaking English and everyone speaking at once.

But it was awful not to be able to ask about Kerry. Nobody had mentioned his name.

   After supper Dara linked Grace out into the garden. They were meant to be doing a tour of the café.

“And what news of your big brother?” Dara tried to be light and joky.

“Oh, didn’t he write to you? I
told
him you were coming home today. He was on the phone looking for Father.”

“How was he?”

“He was mainly sounding off about Miss Hayes. I had to keep the telephone very close to my ear in case she’d hear, he’d called the night before for Father, and a … oh, I don’t know, she hadn’t given the right message. But I did tell him you’d be back today.”

“Thanks, Grace.” Dara was bleak.

“Was it great, France?” Grace was eager. “Did you go out at all to any parties or dances?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“What was the best part?”

“We had a picnic … they call it peek neek, honestly. They had huge loaves of French bread and cheese and peaches and wine … And we went to this place on a river, not the Loire itself but a smaller river like the Fern, and we went swimming, all of us. Even Madame. And we stayed there till quite late and it got dark, and they all seemed very happy …”

Grace looked at her, trying to see why this had been the high spot.

Dara went on. “They seemed so safe, sort of. As if they’d always be together, and I understood all the conversation, which I usually didn’t. I think it might have been the wine … And suddenly there were all these little pinpoints of light everywhere. Fireflies they were.”

“Oh, yes, fireflies are lovely,” Grace said.

“I told them we didn’t have any here, and Monsieur said I must look again when I got home. That was the best time, I think.”

Grace seemed pleased that Dara had a happy if unfathomable memory. She hugged her friend. “It’s great to have you home again,” she said.

And Dara felt a great ache.

It would have been great to come home if there had been a note from Kerry saying when he’d be back in Mountfern. If Maggie had been running up River Road after supper, hands clasped and eager to hear every detail. If Tommy had come in making jokes about the French.

And if Mam’s face hadn’t this tired look, and if she’d been able to eat her supper instead of moving the cold chicken and ham from one side of the plate to the other.

   Loretto Quinn had to tell someone so she picked Sheila Whelan.

“It could be totally innocent,” Sheila said.

“It has to be,” Loretto said. “Mother of God, you don’t think that they’d have been sleeping together as man and wife would you?”

Sheila sighed a “no”.

“But what was he doing back in town, let alone above in her room?” Loretto’s open face was puzzled. “Rachel told me herself that he wouldn’t be coming back until the opening. And young Dara Ryan said that Mr. O’Neill said he was still above in Donegal.”

“It’s a mystery all right,” Sheila said. She had a feeling that something was very wrong here. If Kerry really had been sneaking into Mountfern and to Rachel for any purpose under the sun, not to mention the interpretation which would be put on it, then why had he advertised it so publicly?

People didn’t die without orange juice and eggs. He could have waited until Jack Coyne had left the shop, he would have heard his voice before he came in. Kate Ryan had always been worried about Kerry, she had said there was something very strange about him, he didn’t react like ordinary people.

Maybe Kate had been right.

   Tommy Leonard was disappointed that he had missed Dara coming back. He had gone out with Jacinta to find good angles where Mountfern could be photographed.

Mr. O’Neill was having a photographer next week who would take glossy pictures of the place and they would be turned into postcards. Some would be sold in the hotel, some in Leonard’s. Privately Tommy thought that if the visitors could buy them at the information desk in the hotel they would be most unlikely to want to trek the whole way to Leonard’s to buy the same thing. But his father had been very respectful and over-thanked Mr. O’Neill.

Jack Coyne came in to buy a paper. He ignored Tommy and went instead to the older man. Jack lowered his voice so Tommy made an effort to hear. It seemed to be about Kerry O’Neill having breakfast with Loretto Quinn. Or was it Mrs. Fine? In either case hadn’t they little to talk about!

Tommy’s thoughts went back to Dara. He wished he hadn’t gone out with Jacinta, he felt sure no good would come of it. Liam White said that Dara had changed totally, gotten a smaller waist, a bigger chest and a sort of bold flashy look about her as if she had seen it all and done it all. Tommy knew that this couldn’t be true, but he did wish that he had been able to see her himself and make these observations about her chest and her waist instead of hearing it all from Liam.

He stood there, legs aching, wishing that his father had not been so infected by Mr. O’Neill’s diligence that he now kept the shop open until nine o’clock in the evening.

Fergus went for a stroll which took him, as his strolls nearly always did, to the door of Ryan’s.