The Miracle Man (18 page)

With a piece of meat in one hand and a rolling pin in the other, the Winter Cook went searching behind the furniture and boxes in the kitchen of the Glens Hotel for the cat, which had stolen a piece of lemon sole from a plate and her only turned her back for a second, the filthy brute. As she went, she hummed a little tune, an action which was entirely foreign to Mrs Megarrity’s cantankerous nature.

“Here, puss puss puss,” she said, holding out the meat and hefting the rolling pin. “Come and get it!” She bent low and peered under a table. No sign of it there. Tiptoeing across the room, she gently opened a cupboard door with her toe, the meat waving before her, the rolling pin held aloft. Then she searched among the packets, tins and jars stored there, but saw no sign of the fat, sleek animal that seemed to be able to disappear like a wisp of smoke after each of its many crimes. And still the Winter Cook kept up her tuneless humming as she pulled out boxes and looked inside, peered behind piles of nested pots and even looked in the oven in case the cat, in desperation, had decided that a slow baking was better than a cracked skull.

Having failed to find any trace of the animal, the Winter Cook laid the piece of meat on the table and was turning to put the rolling pin back into the drawer when she heard behind her the little thump of four paws landing on something. She glanced round, the wooden implement still clutched in her plump hand. Standing on the table, the big tom cat was lowering his head towards the piece of rump steak. A gleam of triumph illuminated Mrs Megarrity’s eyes as she silently turned, at the same time raising the rolling pin to shoulder height. She took one step across the kitchen floor. The cat’s mouth was round the meat. The cat bit into the red flesh. Mrs
Megarrity’s final step was more of a leap, with the rolling pin slicing through the air towards the animal’s head. At the last possible moment, the cat leapt clean off the table onto the sink and from there out of the open window. The rolling pin thudded into the slice of meat, Mrs Megarrity shouted, “Jasus tonight!” and then Dermot McAllister walked into the kitchen.

“Mrs Megarrity! What the hell are you doing?” he said, a puzzled smile on his face. Again the Winter Cook thumped the rolling pin on the rump steak.

“I declare to God, Mr McAllister,” she said, “this meat’s tougher than old boots. When I get that butcher, I’ll give him rump steak, so I will. This has been in his freezer that long it’s near fossilised.”

“Well, never mind that for a minute. I’ve got something important to tell you.” He gave a broad grin. “I just had bookings for three single rooms for tonight. Can you do three extra dinners for this evening? I think they’re newspaper reporters from the South. The first of many, I hope, coming to report on the miracle story.” He rubbed his hands together. “This is just the start of it, Mrs Megarrity. Just the start. Tell me, how’s the Miracle Man keeping?”

“Oh, the Miracle Man’s just fine,” she retorted, “but I’m not a miracle bloody woman. How am I expected to get meals ready for people when I don’t know they’re coming? Would you tell me that?”

“But – I just told you, Mrs Megarrity.”

“That’s all very well, Mr McAllister, but I can’t be going out now to buy a whole rake of stuff to put on a menu, and if I was to keep it in case somebody did turn up and then had to throw it out, you’d be onto me about the cost of the food.”

“Ah, Mrs Megarrity, I’m sure you’ll rustle up something. You always do. I’m sure these reporters are not that fussy.”

“And another thing,” she said. “If I’m to be doing all this
extra work, I don’t think a rise in wages would go amiss.”

“Mrs Megarrity,” Dermot said, approaching as if he was about to put his arm around her. The temptation was not difficult for Dermot to resist. “Believe me, I would like nothing better than to give you a wage rise. I really would. But until business gets better – and maybe this is the start of it – there isn’t much I can do without bankrupting the place.”

The Winter Cook smiled sweetly at him.

“Ah now, I’m sure there is, Mr McAllister, I’m sure there is. In fact,” she turned the rolling pin in her fat hands, “unless you want Mrs McAllister to find out about the shenanigans upstairs in the bedroom with the piano teacher, I would think there’s quite a lot you could do.”

The look on Dermot’s face was a mixture of pain and puzzlement.

“The – piano teacher?” he said, adding under his breath, “I’ll kill the little bugger.”

She held up her hands in protestation of innocence.

“Not that I would sit in judgement on any man, Mr McAllister. ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’, that’s always been my motto. But I’m not so sure your good wife would see it that way. I’d say another – fifteen pound a week would save any problems in that department.”

With tight lips and narrowed eyes, Dermot regarded the Winter Cook for what seemed like a long time.

“Five,” he said.

The Winter Cook gave this some thought.

“Ten.”

“Seven fifty, dammit, and that’s my final offer.”

“Done,” said the Winter Cook, with only a modest smile.

“Of course, you know what this is, Mrs Megarrity. This is blackmail.”

“Oh, I know, Mr McAllister, I know fine. And thank God for it.”

Mr Andrew Rowan, senior partner in the firm of Rowan, Rowan and Pettigrew was a small, dapper man in his mid sixties who liked to dress well, dine on the best and in general enjoy the good things in life, whether provided by his own efforts or unwittingly by those of his clients. His thriving solicitor’s practice in Belfast had long ensured that he could maintain an expensive lifestyle, and since his son had joined him as a partner, he felt that the family fortunes were now doubly secure. On recently inserting the second Rowan into the name of the practice, he had reflected on why he had never removed that of Pettigrew all those years ago, but Rowan and Pettigrew had a ring to it, and anyway it was always better to give the impression that a practice was not simply a one-man band. It had only been a few years after he had set up the practice with Pettigrew that the unfortunate incident of the widow’s legacy had occurred. Poor Pettigrew. For a solicitor, he had been so naive, and Rowan had been happy to benefit from the money while his partner took the blame. Naturally, Rowan had made great efforts to cover things up for his friend and partner, and had certainly succeeded in preventing charges from being brought, but some kind of justice had to be seen to
be done, and so young Pettigrew had had to leave and sell his half of the business to Rowan. At a price which was very advantageous to Rowan, of course. On reflection, Rowan realised that it had been a blessing in more ways than one, as it showed that Pettigrew would never have made either a good solicitor or a long-term partner. He was too naïf – that was Mr Rowan’s euphemism for “honest” – and would certainly have brought misfortune upon the firm sooner or later. And Pettigrew’s departure had certainly been the start of Rowan’s success, the other major part of which had been the handling of legal affairs for the Garrison family. When old man Garrison had died, who better to advise on both legal and investment affairs for his two daughters than Mr Rowan. And advise them he did, on investments in land, in property, in stocks and shares and, as he had determined at the outset, he kept on advising them about their money until it was all gone.

In mid morning the wind had changed from the west to due south and now sent a warming breeze across the strand at Inisbreen, where Mr Rowan and the two Misses Garrison were taking a leisurely walk back to the Glens Hotel for lunch. The solicitor walked with a sister on either side of him, stopping here and there to ask about various points of interest – the strangely-shaped hill at the top of the glen, the derelict house on the strand – and Margaret regaled him with little anecdotes of times past and how nothing was what it had been in their young days.

Cissy took little part in the conversation, pre-occupied as she was – and as she had been for the last few days – with thoughts of John McGhee. She knew that everyone called him Limpy, but she could never think of him like that. And now, apparently, she would have no need to do so, as they were saying that he’d had a miraculous cure to his leg. It had only been after their recent brief conversation that she had realised the possibility of there still being a spark of interest on her part, a spark – indeed it was
then a flame – that she had assumed extinguished many years ago by her father and Margaret. By turns she thought a relationship so long over was incapable of revival, then in the next breath decided that true love never dies, except perhaps beneath the dragon breath of Margaret. She was reluctantly being drawn towards the conclusion that it would have been better if John had not spoken to her that day at the strand.

“I’m so glad you came down today, Mr Rowan,” Margaret was saying to the solicitor. “This whole money business has been such a worry to me this last few weeks, I feel quite exhausted by it. But now that you’re here, dear Mr Rowan, I feel sure that we can have the whole matter resolved and then we can get back onto an even footing, don’t you think?”

Mr Rowan gave the obsequious smile that he kept exclusively for elderly female clients and in particular for those like Margaret Garrison, who, whilst trying to give the impression of being knowledgeable and sophisticated in financial matters, were in fact not only naïf but gullible.

“Now, now, Miss Margaret, didn’t we promise that we wouldn’t talk about nasty business matters until lunch? After all, you can’t expect me to be subjected to your sharp intellect on an empty stomach, mh?” he said, and as she gave him a coquettish smile, he sounded his little chirruping laugh and breathed deeply of the fresh sea air.

At first they were the only customers in the dining-room of the Glens Hotel. Later, an old couple came in, both of them talking loudly to overcome the other’s hardness of hearing, the man drumming his fingers on the table with impatience at the woman‘s repeated questions, she giving a snort of derision at each reply he gave her. The Winter Cook came out from the kitchen with three tatty menu folders which she put on the Garrisons’ table, then stood tapping a pencil against her pad and sucking at her teeth. The rolled-up sleeves of her black sweater bobbed at her wrists.

“Right, what d’yez want?” she demanded when they had barely opened the folders, inside each one of which was a small piece of paper that had written on it in scrawly writing:

Soup

Fish (depends)

or Steak and Kidney Pie

Ice Cream

Coffee

Mr Rowan looked at the menu, pulled a face and demanded,

“Is this it?”

“No, the steak and kidney pie’s off,” the Winter Cook said. “The cat got at it. Well, there’s maybe about enough left for one, if anybody’s interested. So, what is it to start? Three soups?”

“What is this,” Mr Rowan persisted, “‘depends’?”

“Depends what kind of fish is available at the time.”

“I see. And what kind of fish is available today?”

“White.”

“White? What kind of white fish?”

“Look, mister, I’m not a biologist. I just take the guts out and cook them. D’ye want it or not?”

Mr Rowan took a very deep breath and his lips drew to a point and his eyes narrowed.

“This is ridiculous. You have the effrontery to call this place a restaurant. Of all the establishments I have ever been in – ”

Margaret Garrison laid a restraining hand on his arm and said frostily to Mrs Megarrity, “Three soups and three fish please. Boiled potatoes and carrots.”

Mrs Megarrity walked away without writing anything on her pad. Mr Rowan looked at the menus and then said to Margaret Garrison,

“How did you know there were boiled potatoes and carrots?”

“Because it’s always boiled potatoes and carrots.”

Mr Rowan slowly shook his head.

When Mrs Megarrity brought the soup, which looked as if it might once have had a casual acquaintance with vegetables, Mr Rowan said,

“Could I see a wine list, please?”

“Ye could,” Mrs Megarrity informed him, “if ye had a pair of binoculars. The nearest wine list’s in the Strand Hotel, five miles away.” She turned and walked off towards the kitchen.

Mr Rowan looked at each of the Garrison sisters in turn.

“And this is where you have lived for the last seventeen years? My dear ladies, you have my undying admiration.”

Over the first course, Mr Rowan at last broached the subject of the Misses Garrisons’ finances, when he pulled a face at the thick and oily consistency of the soup and replaced the spoon in his bowl. Then he gave a smile of such ferocity that a passing shark, having seen it through the window from the bay outside, might well have claimed kinship with the smart little solicitor from Belfast.

“Well, ladies – to business. As you are aware, for many years now my practice has acted on your behalf in the administration of your late father’s estate and the ensuing investments and disbursements. In accordance with what was decided immediately after his death, I was given power of attorney over your financial affairs and have therefore in the intervening years been able to manage them as dictated by the prevailing financial climate – ,” Margaret Garrison nodded sagely and Rowan continued, “ – in order to save both of you any worries or concerns regarding the best way to deploy your assets. And from time to time, as prudence dictated, some assets were acquired and some assets relinquished,” he held his hands wide, palms upwards, in a display of acceptance of the vagaries of long-term investment, “by dint of which substantial gains – and some losses – were made.” He paused for a
moment, allowing the significance of this statement to be realised. “In the case of equities, it is of course in their nature that values can fall as well as rise, and it was indeed sometimes necessary to sell at a loss – in order to avoid further losses, you understand.”

Margaret Garrison smiled her understanding. Cissy gave no reaction but, unusually for her, she had fixed Mr Rowan with a steady look. Had Margaret Garrison seen this, she would have assumed that her sister’s thoughts were far removed from the subject of her gaze.