The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (173 page)

It had been decided that there was too much glass in this room, too many panes, and too many plants to make it a suitable place for a party. Jim Costello had been at enough functions to know that it was not wise to mix euphoria, free liquor, and plates of glass.

Kerry’s carefully stacked boxes would be safe here. Until they could be collected tomorrow. One phone call saying what he had done. And then he was clear.

   “I can either take the tooth out now, which will guarantee you have no pain, or I can give you a temporary filling and we’ll try to save the tooth later.”

Jim Costello did not need a moment’s thought. “Give me a mirror,” he asked.

He looked. The missing tooth would show—only a little, but it would be seen.

“I’ll have the filling, if you will,” he said. He lay back in the chair.

He knew there was nothing to be gained by fussing and looking at his watch; the man was going to take his own time doing the job no matter how agitated the patient was. Better relax and realize that the world can, if necessary, go on without you.

   Grace was surprised to see Kerry.

“You look terrible,” she said.

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Yes, but what happened?”

“I want to clean up. I have to go back to the lodge and get changed, and I don’t want anyone to see me like this and ask questions. God, how I hate questions.”

“Sorry,” Grace said sulkily.

In a few minutes he looked more presentable. Now no one would comment.

“Well, are you looking forward to the day?” he asked.

“Yes and no. Michael is still very down. I hate people not to be good-tempered.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Oh, he’s being silly, he’ll get over it. When can we go back into the tunnel?”

Kerry laughed suddenly. “Anytime you like,” he said, then he stopped. “Hey wait, don’t go back there; there’s been a subsidence. It’s dangerous now, some of those old posts have given way.”

“They couldn’t have—”

“They have,” he said curtly. “And anyway, no fooling around, you hear. You’re not to be just anyone’s. You’re Grace O’Neill, you’re very important.”

She hugged him. “Oh, Kerry, it’s nice that you’re all cheerful again. Maybe today … maybe Father …”

“Yes, it could happen. Why not?” Kerry left her room and ran lightly down the stairs, through the hall filled with sprays and blooms and people from the florist’s. As he was going down the steps of the hotel to his car, he saw Jim Costello coming up.

“Your big day,” Kerry said pleasantly.

“Yes, great beginning with a butcher in a dentist’s chair,” Jim said ruefully.

“I heard. Is it okay?”

“Look at it this way. I don’t think he loosened too many of the others, and I’ve wiped away most of the blood.”

Kerry laughed. He used to think Costello an arrogant little guy. But he did have a sense of humor. And a great sense of command. Kerry stood and watched while he managed to restore order to the huge hall in moments.

Jim Costello looked back at Kerry too. The fellow seemed high or excited. He laughed too readily, like people do when they are in the middle of something dangerous.

   Kate had sought the moment to tell John their news. She had not been able to find it.

She had thought that last night when the bar closed, they might sit in the garden and she would tell him then.

But the bar just wouldn’t close. The sense of excitement about the opening was everywhere.

Mary Donnelly had worked like an automaton. She said it might be the last good night’s business they ever had. Keep serving, keep pouring, keep clanging the till.

There was no danger of a raid. Sergeant Sheehan wouldn’t be so discourteous. And even if some of his superiors would be here for the official opening of Fernscourt, none of them would arrive the night before, so a little after-hours drinking would not be anything to come down on too heavily.

There was no time last night. They were both too tired. She had been going to tell him this morning, until all the drama in the bathroom and Carrie’s predicament had intervened. It almost seemed like a surfeit of pregnancy to tell John about hers!

Perhaps this evening, in the peace and quiet. Perhaps that would be a good time.

She settled herself in her finery, and waited for him to come and wheel her across the footbridge and to the party.

   The music was marvelous.
Tales from the Vienna Woods
, a selection from
The Gondoliers
and some rousing Sousa marches. Jim Costello had known the right band to hire, and the right repertoire for it to play.

On all sides of Mountfern they smiled when it struck up. The gala opening was under way.

For ages Dara sat on the window seat looking at the crowds gathering.

She could see cars coming down the big drive that led from the main road to Fernscourt. Local people walked up River Road and were crossing by the footbridge.

She saw Dad wheel the chair across, and a little lump came in her throat. Mam would so much have liked to have walked. Poor Mam, missing Mrs. Fine in spite of everything.

Dara had not been upset by her mother’s remarks. That was what Mrs. Fine
would
have said, after all. All that about Kerry being dangerous.

She stood up and smoothed the red dress. It did look very, very good. And nobody had said anything about the make-up, which meant that she didn’t have quite enough on. She would put on more lipstick and go across. Kerry would be waiting for her.

   Mary Sheehan couldn’t understand it. Her husband had said that he had to do one simple job, which would put him in great standing with the lads and the superiors today. He had brought guards in early from the big town, saying that there was a cache of stolen goods in some hole or tunnel over on the towpath.

The guards arrived early in order to have it all cleared by the time any festivities began. They had gone in and found nothing but children’s playing things.

Seamus Sheehan had looked in disbelief at the clay and the splintered wood. This hadn’t been heaped like that last night. The tunnel had stretched farther. Surely it had?

But then he hadn’t followed it. He hadn’t needed to. The boxes and crates had been here in this room. This room now with nothing but children’s tables, chairs, and a broken sofa.

Sergeant Sheehan stared in front of him as he sat stupefied in his chair. It was no use that Sheila Whelan backed him up. What did people from the big town make of Sheila except to think she was the local postmistress? They weren’t to know that she was the soundest person in the place.

He had been a fool not to have gone in straight after McCann had left last night. He had thought it would be better to do the thing by the light of the day.

He had been wrong.

One of the men from the tourist board stood near Patrick and told him who the people were. This was the Protestant bishop arriving now, a very big gesture; people would talk of this for a long time. There were TDs from all political parties and one cabinet minister. There were other hoteliers there, and the man from the tourist board said that their faces were forty shades of green. They muttered from one vista to the next about the size of the grant O’Neill must have gotten, the money he must have sunk in it, the hopelessness of trying to compete with anything like this, the folly of believing that there could ever be a return on such expenditure.

Patrick loved it. Every moment of it.

And he loved it when Mr. Williams, the vicar, introduced him to the Walters and the Harrises. People of substance, who had estates near Mountfern. Mr. Walters said his father used to come here a lot in the old days, and Colonel Harris said that he had old pictures of the place in its previous existence. It was wonderful to see it rise again.

They spoke as if a mere half century of being a ruin had been a slight inconvenience and that it had been no trouble for Patrick to get the place started again.

Patrick gave several grateful looks at Jim Costello. The man was a wonder. He managed to be everywhere and yet unobtrusive. Small, handsome, and efficient, courteous and determined. What he would give to have had a son like that!

His own son was behaving well for once. His face looked flushed and excited. He was the center of attention as he moved easily among the crowd.

But while Costello moved about seeing that people were all right, that no one was alone or feeling outside things, Kerry moved like a glorious light that has no purpose except to be looked at and admired.

   The twins crossed the footbridge together, as they had done so many times.

In the days when their lives were full of fantasy and imagination they could not have dreamed up anything as splendid as this.

“You look terrific, Dara.”

“Thanks, Michael. So do you. Very very smart.”

Dara wanted to hold his hand for some reason, to reassure him. They walked up through the laurels. The marquee for lunch was by the dock and the barge. But the drinks and welcoming party were around the steps and the main hall.

They came into the crowded forecourt and Dara saw him. There stood Kerry in his new white jacket that he had told her about, his pink-and-white shirt. He looked like a hero, not a man. She saw him laughing and bending a little to listen, then he threw back his head and laughed again.

He was with Kitty Daly, who looked stunning. Her long hair hung loose like a huge halo around her, almost like a cape over her magnificent dress.

Kitty was wearing the copper-colored dress that had been made for Maggie. On Maggie it had been a big flowing dress. On Kitty, who was tall and leggy, the copper dress was a mini-dress.

She looked at Kerry O’Neill with all the confidence of a beauty who doesn’t need to wonder if other people are looking at her.

She would expect them to be looking. And liking what they saw.

   “Are you all right?” Jim Costello spoke to Dara Ryan, who was holding on to one of the huge urns near the steps.

“Yes. Yes, why?”

“I thought you looked dizzy for a moment.”

“No. No, I’m fine. Thank you very much.”

Jim looked at her appreciatively. “You look very well, I must say, Dara, really very smart.”

“Thanks, Mr. Costello.”

He wondered why her voice was so dead. She really did look well in that red silk. Unlike Grace, who looked like a meringue in all that pink linen and broderie anglaise.

But Dara Ryan had no life in her eyes; she had hardly heard the compliment.

   Michael came back with two glasses of orange. They had sugar around the edge and a slice of real orange cut so that it was fixed to the glass.

“Have this,” he said.

Dara took it silently.

“She can’t know; she wasn’t here for the dress and everything.”

“I know, I remembered that.”

“She must have just found it at home.” He was trying to take the pain out of Dara’s eyes.

“Yes. Yes, that must have been it.”

“And I’m sure he doesn’t like her
really
, it’s only with all that hair and everything …” His voice trailed away.

   Papers Flynn and Mary Donnelly raised their glasses to each other as they sat in the warm autumn sunshine outside Ryan’s pub.

Mary produced soda bread and slices of ham.

“Much better fare here than we’d get across there,” she said.

“It’s that, all right.” Papers ate happily.

“I never go for salmon all that much,” Mary said.

“Full of bones, it would have your throat in ribbons,” said Papers, who had never tasted salmon in his life.

   Eddie saw Leopold crossing the footbridge.

He remembered his mother’s advice: do nothing, nothing at all, without careful thought. He stood there and tried to think carefully. What would a normal person do? Would they ignore Leopold? Or would they take him home? Would they offer him a plate of salmon? The more he thought, the more Eddie realized that careful thinking helped him not at all.

He watched the dog go around the hotel and out toward the back.

   The action moved down toward the marquee. Luncheon was being served. The band had started to play lunchtime numbers like songs from
The Student Prince
and
The Merry Widow
.