The Tour (8 page)

Juliet smiled.

‘Do you know Conor, I think you’re right. That’s exactly what I’m going to do,’ she said with a grin.

For the next hour, a very pleasant hour, they spent the time talking about Larry and about her life in Des Moines. She told him she was thinking of buying a condo in Florida, about her life as a librarian. Conor was so easy to talk to, she even confessed to him about her daily chats with Larry.

‘I guess you get all kind of fruitcakes on these trips, so one who talks to a dead guy every day isn’t all that amazing.’

Conor smiled. ‘Do you know something Juliet? I think you are a very lucky woman to have known such happiness as you had with your husband all those years. I do believe we go somewhere when we die, and that we’ll all meet again, so why shouldn’t you keep in touch with Larry? He’s probably looking down at you right now, hoping you have a great holiday, that you splash out on a nice steak and a bottle of wine tomorrow night, and that you forget about having anything to do with the tap water and the early bird seafood platter.’

Juliet felt guilty revealing all that stuff about Dorothy, but it felt good to let off some steam. Somehow, she knew that Conor O’Shea was the soul of discretion. She finished her third glass of wine and stood up.

‘Thank you for a lovely chat, Conor. I really enjoyed talking to you.’

‘And I enjoyed talking to you too. See you in the morning Juliet.
Codhladh Sámh
.’ Noting her confused expression, he said, ‘It’s the Irish for goodnight. It means I wish you a peaceful sleep.’

‘Well, Colla sawve to you too,’ she replied, and went back to face the wrath of Dorothy Crane with a lighter heart – the first time she had felt light-hearted since she left Des Moines the previous week.

Chapter 8

After the informative tour of Charles Fort the following morning, the group sat outside a café taking in the spectacular harbour view. Bert was entertaining the group with stories of the funeral party he had stumbled across the night before.

‘I walked up to the bar and this real old-timer was sitting there, just a few teeth you know? And he asked me where I was from. I guessed the guy was a little deaf, so I said loudly, “I’m from Texas, in the United States of America.” I tell you this guy looked like he hadn’t moved off that stool in fifty years. Then he said, “Well, I only was in Texas once, but I spent four years in Butte, Montana and my brother lives in Chittenango, Nebraska.” You could have knocked me down with a feather. I was trying to find out more about him, why he went there and why he came back to Ireland, but
no way
, he wasn’t one for sharing! He wanted to know what I had for breakfast but I didn’t even manage to find out his name! Man, that was some party. I think when I die, this is the right place to have a funeral shindig. You know what they told me? The only difference between an Irish funeral and an Irish wedding is that there’s one less drunk.’ The group laughed at Bert’s story.

‘Of course, the Irish have always had a weakness for alcohol. It’s probably due to an innate inability to face reality,’ Dorothy interjected.

Conor noted the embarrassed looks on the faces of the other group members at this obvious slight against his compatriots.

Quick as a flash, he piped up: ‘Do you know why God invented whiskey?’

There was relief on the faces around the table as he was obviously going to save the situation.

‘I have a feeling you’re gonna tell us Conor,’ laughed Bert.

‘Well,’ Conor replied, ‘they say that the good Lord invented whiskey to stop the Irish taking over the world.’

There was laughter all around the table and Dorothy’s withering remark was instantly forgotten. The skinny latte that Anna Heller had bought for her husband sat cooling on the table. He had walked away to take a call on his mobile phone twenty minutes earlier in the middle of the fort tour and had not reappeared since. Anna tried not to look like anything was amiss, but she was acutely aware of how anti- social her husband was being. Ellen, who was seated on her right, sensed this and said, ‘So, Anna, what did you and Elliot get up to last night?’

‘Oh we…em…we went for a meal with some business associates of Elliot’s. He’s looking at some investments over here so it was…’ her voice trailed off.

Dylan addressed the group for the first time. They gazed at him, looking a bit surprised that he had decided to involve himself in the conversation. Bert couldn’t be exactly sure, but he thought Dylan was wearing lipstick, which was a mystery to him, as he had remarked to Ellen earlier. Ellen had replied that she wasn’t remotely shocked by Dylan’s appearance. She had seen many students over the years experimenting with a variety of different images; it was all part of growing up.

‘I went to a gig,’ Dylan said quietly. No one responded to this conversational offering. Ellen noticed colour beginning to creep up the young boy’s neck, so she asked, ‘What kind of music was it?’

The group looked even more bemused at the notion of this strange young man discussing music with an elderly lady.

‘Irish music, like traditional kinda stuff,’ he replied, grateful that someone in this group seemed capable of having a normal discussion. ‘I heard these guys playing music in a church yesterday, when you were all at that castle place, and so I just got talking to them.’

The group exchanged looks, as if the idea of Dylan spontaneously starting a conversation with anyone was unlikely to say the least. Ellen smiled encouragingly at the boy, so he continued, ‘They said they were playing a session last night in a bar down town, so they said I could come along. A session is what they call it when a bunch of musicians just all show up to the same bar at the same time and just start playing. It was awesome!’ His eyes shone with enthusiasm, ‘There is this thing like a bagpipe but it’s not and it makes the most incredible sound, like I dunno, I can’t describe it.’

He suddenly became aware that everyone at the table was looking at him and he stopped talking, embarrassed once again.

‘Were they uilleann pipes I wonder?’ asked Conor ‘Was the fella squeezing them with one arm and covering holes on the pipes with his fingers?’

‘Yeah,’ Dylan replied, but much quieter this time, ‘that’s it…that’s the name. There were some other guys playing violins and guitars too.’

‘Lord save us Dylan, don’t leave the fella with the violin hear you…in this country that’s called a fiddle.’

‘Oh OK, I’ll try to remember that,’ Dylan replied, smiling for the first time since the conversation had begun.

‘My son is a very talented musician,’ Corlene announced to the table. ‘I mean to say, he would have to be, my whole family is very creative. My niece won the beautiful baby contest at our state fair three years running. I myself, of course, am no stranger to the catwalks either…,’ she smiled coquettishly at Bert. ‘I have done some photo shoots as well. Swimwear, lingerie, that sort of thing…if anyone wants to see them I could bring them on the coach tomorrow…the photos I mean… not the lingerie hahahahahahaha,’ she finished raucously.

The faces regarding her display were a mixture of disapproval and horror. Some of them gave their coffee their undivided attention to avoid looking at the long false eyelash that had escaped from her overly made-up eyes. It had already slipped half way down one cheek and looked set to progress even further.

‘So Conor,’ said Ellen, anxious to distract them all from the disaster, ‘Are you from around here?’

‘I am actually Ellen,’ Conor replied. ‘I was born here in County Cork, about twenty miles from Kinsale.’

‘And do you get home much?’ she went on.

‘Not much during the season, to be honest. I work tours back to back from around March to November.’

‘And is there a Mrs Conor?’ Patrick asked with a wink. Conor smiled. ‘Tis easy knowing you’re a cop Patrick!

But to answer your question, no, I’m not married.’

Corlene cast another lingering glance at Conor. He was very attractive, she thought, no doubt about that. He obviously worked out and his colouring didn’t look Irish. His particular combination of tanned skin, blue eyes, shock of silver hair and tall, muscular frame made him quite unusual looking and he attracted attention. She was a keen people watcher and had registered that he never seemed to notice the admiring glances he received, especially from women. He was a bit on the young side though, plus he was only a bus driver, so he wouldn’t make enough to keep her. With regret, she dismissed the idea of a potential conquest.

Conor arranged for them all to meet for dinner that evening in the hotel. In the meantime, as he had a few hours to himself, he drove to the town of Passage West. While manoeuvring the coach down the main street, he was hit with that a familiar feeling of wanting to get out of there as fast as he could.

The village consisted of one street, which split in two around a public square. On a hill, overlooking the town sat a Catholic Church with a Protestant one tucked behind it. The defunct St Mary’s girl’s primary school, with boarded up windows dominated the main street. It had been replaced by a newer, more modern building outside the town. There was one small shop, a children’s playground and five pubs. Although he had grown up there, it didn’t feel like home to him. His father, Jamsie, like many of his generation, had left to find work in England just before Conor’s eighth birthday. From that day on, he never returned once to visit his wife and two young sons. Conor had heard rumours years ago that his father had remarried in Dagenham, and had a family there, but the gossip never really affected him. At the age of eight and a bit, he assumed the role of man of the house. His mother, Lily, was a quiet kind of woman, slight and dark, good looking in an understated way. Everyone said his brother Gerry was the image of his mother, whereas Conor was tall and broad with reddish brown hair, just like his father.

Lily was inoffensive in every way. He supposed she had to be, because even though it was not in any way her fault that that her husband upped and left one day, it was regarded with shame in the area. She looked after her two boys, went to mass, kept her house clean, and lived out what must have been a lonely kind of existence, Conor thought. For women in her position, remarriage or even a friendship with another man was utterly out of the question – a fact that had made Conor sad for her, since he would have really liked his Mam to have met someone nice.

Passage West was his father’s home place and despite the fact that his Mam came from a village nine miles away, she was always considered a blow-in. She died as she lived, quietly and without fuss, when Conor was fifteen and Gerry was twelve. It was decided by the all-powerful village triumvirate – the headmaster, parish priest and the local sergeant – that Conor should get an apprenticeship as a mechanic and Gerry should go into care, as there were no relatives willing to take the boys on, and all attempts to contact their father in England had failed.

The word “care” Conor knew, had very little to do with how children who ended up in industrial schools were actually treated in the Ireland of the 1970’s, and he was determined to keep his brother out of one of these institutions. With the help of his mother’s only real friend and neighbour, Mary Harrington, he fought long and hard to win a reprieve. Eventually, it was agreed that Conor could continue to live in his mother’s house, get a job and look after Gerry.

As he parked the coach, memories of his past came flooding back. Gerry had always been spoiled. He had no recollection of his father, and by way of compensation or something, he had been indulged throughout his childhood by his endlessly uncritical mother. Conor remembered the last time he saw him: dark hair combed back in a Teddy Boy style, trousers so tight Conor wondered how he could manage to walk in them. His feet clad in a pair of winklepickers on his little finger a gold ring.

Gerry left school at the age of 16, the year after he spectacularly failed his Intermediate Certificate. What he lacked in academic prowess he equally lacked in ambition and the desire to work. Conor managed to talk Matt Sheehan, the owner of the local hardware shop, into giving Gerry a job. Matt had great time for Conor, so it was with a heavy heart he came into the garage where Conor was working as a mechanic one day two months later to say he would have to let Gerry go. He had caught him stealing from the till, and, he told a horrified Conor, Gerry had only laughed when confronted with the accusation. Matt assured him that there would be no question of involving the guards or anything like that, but under no circumstances was Gerry to show his face in Sheehan’s Hardware ever again.

Conor arrived home that evening to find Gerry lying on the sofa watching cartoons. Gerry wore the same smug expression he always wore – as if he was laughing at the world. He did not acknowledge his brother’s presence: he might as well have been invisible. Conor flipped.

‘Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to stop them taking you to that industrial school? And then you do this to me?’

He remained motionless, glued to the television, unfazed by his brother’s outburst. Incensed at his attitude, Conor pounced on him, dragged him outside to the back yard and punched him into the face. As blood began to pour out of his mouth, Conor stopped and stared in horror, imagining his Mam looking down on him.

‘Oh God! I’m sorry Gerry, I shouldn’t have hit you...it’s just...’ Still wearing more or less the same smug expression, Gerry walked back into the house, lay down on the sofa and continued watching TV while holding a tea towel to his bleeding mouth.

After Sheehan’s Hardware, there were several more jobs, but none lasted more than a few months. Either he was fired or he got bored and stopped turning up for work. Eventually, Conor resigned himself to supplementing Gerry’s weekly dole money out of his slim earnings. The strange thing about Gerry was that outside the house he was considered by his peers to be a great fellow, full of fun and devilment, a great hit with the girls. Along with his dark, Brylcreemed hair and startling blue eyes, Gerry O’Shea had charm and style – all far too exotic for Passage West. He listened to Jerry Lee Louis and Elvis Presley – the glam rock of the seventies didn’t interest him at all. He made retro seem so cool. He was an expert in all things American and was frequently heard saying that the minute he got a chance he’d be out of Passage West and off to the States, never to return. In the meantime, the local girls fought for his attention, and the younger lads wished they had his sex appeal.