The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (171 page)

Jim Costello woke with a toothache.

He gave himself five minutes to decide whether he could bear it for the day or whether it would incapacitate him for the day. He decided it would render him speechless.

He rang Dr. White and asked the name of the dentist in the town. Then he rang the dentist.

The dentist was sorry, but he had limited surgery hours today; he was actually going to the official celebrations at the opening of a big new hotel.

“I’m the manager of that bloody hotel, and there won’t
be
an opening unless you do something with my tooth,” Jim said, maddened with pain and the man’s slow obstinate voice at the other end of the phone.

“Well well well.”

“Can you do it, or can you not?” As he spoke, Jim Costello realized how like Patrick O’Neill he was becoming in his speech. It sat better on a middle-aged American tycoon than on a young Irish hotelier.

He changed his approach.

“As you can see, I am utterly relying on you. Just a temporary dressing, anything. You’ve been highly recommended in these parts.”

“I don’t really …”

Jim played his final card. “And if you knew the whole story about the problems we’ve been having and all the celebrities who are expected today … Well, you’ll meet them yourself. If it ever gets going at all.”

That did it. The man said Jim was to get into a car and drive like the clappers, he’d open his office early for him. A chance to hear the inside story about Fernscourt was too much to pass by.

   Mary Donnelly woke and spoke to Leopold, who had been waiting patiently for her to stir.

Leopold was a more intelligent dog than many people gave him credit for. He knew the way to stay in Mary’s good books was by not waking her or snuffling around for anything interesting and certainly not by offering any of his paws in the form of a handshake. Mary was of the opinion that there was far too much insincerity and over-greeting going on in the world. She liked silent ruminative thoughtful encounters. Leopold had adapted to her ways.

He was surprised that she seemed to be making a speech to him; it was not her usual way of greeting the day. He held his head on one side and tried to understand what she was telling him.

It had nothing to do with a walk. But there was no abuse in it, either. He couldn’t fathom it at all.

“Leopold, this is a black day for this house. But apparently none of us are allowed to mention it. The new way of going on is to pretend a problem doesn’t exist. That way we can all go on drinking and slapping each other on the back.

“Listen to me well, Leopold. This is the beginning of the end. You and I could be walking the roads of Ireland with packs on our backs. There’s going to be nothing in the profits of this establishment to put a dinner on the table for either of us once this hotel gets going. But to be fair, Leopold, they never put your dinner on the table. More the floor.”

The dog looked at her trustingly.

“Don’t mind me, Leopold,” she said, scratching his ear. “I am totally mad. Not a little mad. Totally and completely mad.”

   Brian Doyle woke with a thick head. They had been celebrating until a late hour. O’Neill had said that as far as could be seen to the naked eye, the structure seemed sound, and more or less approximated to the plans that had been given to Brian Doyle. He had bought Brian several drinks on the strength of this. Then, back in the town, Brian had decided to finalize the arrangements for taking Peggy, his girlfriend of many years, to the opening. He would call for her at noon, his brother Paudie would drive them so that they need not worry if there were a few drinks taken during the day.

He had been neglectful of Peggy, particularly during these last weeks. He had wanted to explain to her that this was all over. He had not been prepared to meet her mother, a battle axe if ever there was one. The mother had said that Peggy would be going to no opening or closing of any hotel whether built by Brian Doyle or built by the Emperor of China.

Peggy had, according to her mother, belatedly come to her senses over Brian Doyle, she realized that having her name up with him for so many years had brought her nothing but heartbreak and humiliation and, what was more distressing still, had cut her off from any other avenue and future. So that was all in the past now, thanks to the good Lord who had opened her eyes, and she had instructed her mother to pass the burden of the message on to Brian if he ever made an appearance in the next year or so.

This was the heavy artillery.

Brian sat in Peggy’s mother’s kitchen letting the words wash over him and trying to work out where Peggy might be.

“Don’t start it all up again,” said the woman in front of him, who had not ceased to speak since he entered the house. “You’re a bachelor, Brian, stay one. For God’s sake, will you go back out to that hotel and pat it and stroke it and be with it morning noon and night? That’s what you want.”

“I can’t go to bed with the hotel,” Brian said eventually.

“And as sure as your name is Brian Doyle, you can’t go to bed with my daughter either. Sweet talk or no sweet talk. Ring or no ring.”

It hadn’t crossed Brian’s mind that a ring should form part of the proceedings. There was plenty of time for that.

He had left the house disconsolately and on the street run into Seamus Sheehan, the sergeant from Mountfern.

Since Seamus was off duty they went to a pub and Brian explained that he was not a knave or a philanderer at heart, it was just that he was too young to settle down.

Sergeant Sheehan said that basically all men were too young to settle down, his long life in the Guards had taught him that. He cross-questioned Brian about the tunnel behind the bedroom wing, and whether there was any entrance in it under the brambles and briars.

Brian said that he couldn’t bear to think of any more entrances or exits to that hotel than there were already. There had been an unmerciful carry-on about where the drive was going to be at the start; most people thought that it was never going to get off the ground at all.

But Sergeant Sheehan went on and on. Any entrances to old shafts or tunnels or anything they had come across?

Brian Doyle had said that when it was a question of a fairy fort, some of the men he had working for him were as superstitious as old shawlies who would go and tie things to a May tree. They had just avoided going anywhere near it and in the end the best thing had been to build a trellis and drape these creepers over it. Made a kind of wall of sorts.

No, he had no idea if there was anything in it. He didn’t give much thought to the fairy world himself, there was too much happening in the so-called real world. If they were there, which seemed highly unlikely, then leave them to get on with it; that was Brian’s philosophy. Oh, the sergeant meant non-fairies? No, he could not imagine that anyone with a marble left in their head would want to be burrowing around under all those blackberries and old thorns. But then Brian was always the last to be told anything. The whole Pioneer Total Abstinence Association could be having their annual general meeting in those bushes before anyone would think of telling the poor builder.

But wasn’t it a bloody miracle that the place was finished and none of them were in jail or up in the asylum on the hill?

Too late Brian Doyle remembered the youngest Sheehan boy was in that very asylum. He looked glumly into his pint. There were some things you could never backtrack your way out of, and it was wiser not to try.

   Sergeant Seamus Sheehan woke and made his wife a cup of tea.

“This is your big day,” she said sleepily. “Is the weather good for it?”

He opened the curtains a little and peered out.

“It’s bright,” he said. “It’ll be sunny with scattered showers, they said.”

“Ah, well, that’s grand, and they’ll have a tent set up so you won’t notice the showers.”

She was pleased that her husband would be on show and a man of importance today. There were very senior men from Phoenix Park, the Garda headquarters, coming to the reception, and there were local guards from around coming in to help with the traffic and because there would be VIPs coming to the reception. Seamus would have more responsibility than he ever had before.

Seamus Sheehan was glad he hadn’t told his wife about the plan to close in on the tunnel that morning. He had been in the town last night setting it all up with the force there.

He had been praised for the excellent surveillance he had kept, and the superintendent said that he was a model of what an efficient rural sergeant could do by knowing the people of his place and being able to spot anything untoward.

McCann, Byrne and Red Molloy were no mean prize to get in one net.

The plan was to take them early
and
have it wrapped up before the guests started arriving.

Whatever they were up to, that crowd, it must have something to do with the opening. A possible kidnapping.

Guaranteed, of course, to get the worst publicity for Ireland if it took place when a load of American journalists were actually on the spot feeding their faces with salmon and brown bread. They would get them into different cars and take them by different routes to the Garda station in the big town.

Charlie Byrne was the thicko, he’d certainly tell them what was going on.

Sergeant Sheehan was glad that it would all be over well before his wife had put on the new suit that was hanging up outside the wardrobe so that it wouldn’t get crushed, together with the frilly white blouse and a handbag so new that it was still in the paper bag from the shop and had tissue paper inside it to make it keep its shape.

   Kate felt that the day had started poorly. All that shouting and the upset in the bathroom.

But these were as nothing compared to the fact that Carrie was now almost certainly pregnant. That was the first thing to be coped with.

She called the girl into her room and asked her to close the door.

“Have a plain marietta biscuit, Carrie, take one there from the tin on the windowsill.”

Carrie’s eyes were huge. “I was just going to have a drink of bitter lemon or something, ma’am …”

“No, the biscuit is best. I remember myself.”

Carrie’s eyes were full of tears. “It must be definite, ma’am,” she said. “I’m very sorry.”

“Why are you saying you’re sorry to
me
?”

“Well, you’ve been very nice to me. I don’t want to go bringing disgrace on you. That’s the last thing I’d want.”

“You won’t do that. It’s all a matter of what way we look at it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs. Fine used to say to me that life was all about how you looked at things. If you saw the sunny side, then things were sunny … You know, the Americans have some book about it.”

Carrie looked at her, bewildered.

“So what I mean is this, there’s going to be no tears, no apologies, no shame. No saying to Jimbo that you’re sorry. It’s not
your
fault, any more than it is his.”

“But he could say I’d been with anyone. Jimbo’s going to be a known singer. There’s going to be people here today who will have heard of him.” Carrie was full of awe.

“Yes, but he’s your Jimbo. He’s not going to walk out on you?”

“If I gave in to him, let him have his way, what’s to stop him thinking I let other fellows have their way?”

Kate’s face was very impatient.

“Loretto Quinn and Jack Coyne are going to announce their engagement today. I wouldn’t be surprised if Brian Doyle might even stir himself to propose to that long-suffering Peggy. What more natural than you and Jimbo too?”

“But ma’am, he mightn’t want to …”

Kate wasn’t listening. “Yes, a big occasion like this, a very good place, we could even get a bit in the newspapers about it: Singer to wed, it’s a good time of year to think of an Easter wedding.”

“
Easter?
”

“Yes, well that’s for Loretto and Jack. But you and Jimbo might find that to fit in with his career you might suddenly get married straight away, before Christmas.”

“Oh, ma’am, wouldn’t it be great if he’d agree?”

“Of course he’ll agree. He’ll be delighted,” said Kate with much more confidence than she felt.

   Sheila Whelan woke with a heavy heart.

Patrick O’Neill had been in last night, anxious to talk.

“You’re about the only one I can really sit down and talk to.” He looked tired and lonely.

“Haven’t you half the country to talk to?” She smiled.

“Not really.” He gave a heavy sigh.

“You’ll miss Rachel tomorrow?” Sheila was one of the few people who could speak like this without causing him offense.

“I’ll miss her, that’s for sure. She put so goddamn much into it, I wanted her to see the opening, even if afterward … well …” His voice trailed away.

“Probably better for her to go at once if she was going to go at all,” Sheila said.

“Yes, women see it that way. I’m going to call her tomorrow night. At midnight our time it will only be early evening in New York. She agreed that we would talk on the telephone tomorrow.”

He looked boyish and eager. Not the great O’Neill opening the most talked-of hotel in Ireland, who kept his lady friend in doubt about his intentions all the time she was here. Sheila Whelan thought that men were impossible to understand and that perhaps the less time and effort spent trying to understand them the better.

“What are you doing tonight? Getting a good sleep for tomorrow, I hope. You’ll have a long day.”

“I can’t sleep at all these nights. I walk the grounds a lot. I had a few drinks with Doyle. I don’t know which of us is more surprised that he hasn’t ended up in one jail for fraud and I haven’t ended up in another for attempted murder!”

“Go on, you’d be lost without Brian to give out about. You’ll miss him, I promise you.”

“Sheila, you’re very discreet—” Patrick began.

“Not any longer,” she interrupted him.

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Just that. I’m
not
discreet anymore. If I see something I don’t like, then these days I say it. It’s hard to get used to. I keep hoping I’m doing the right thing.”