She laughed and tidied herself before opening the door.
‘Sam, hi,’ she said. ‘Sorry for the delay.’
Sam looked from Kitty to Steve but was so caught up in his own dilemma he didn’t notice anything odd. He walked straight into their room.
‘I take it you spoke to Mary-Rose.’
‘You knew?’
‘Well, she never said anything but I could tell.’
‘Tell what?’ Steve asked, from where he lay back on his own twin bed.
‘That she has feelings for him,’ Kitty said.
‘Oh, yeah, I could tell that.’
‘You could?’
‘Of course, it’s obvious.’
‘Shit.’ Sam sat on the bed, still in shock. ‘I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I said all of those things. I had no idea …’
‘What did you say to her?’ Kitty asked, concerned now.
‘Well, what could I say? I had no idea. I was so surprised, I just said I had to take it all in and think about it.’
Steve sucked in air.
‘Think about it?’ Kitty asked.
‘Well, what was I supposed to say?’ He looked from one to the other.
‘That you feel the same way too,’ Steve said, but he wasn’t looking at Sam, he was looking at Kitty.
‘But I don’t know if I do. I mean, I adore her, she’s my best friend, I’d do anything for her, I’ve just never thought of her in that way.’
‘Yeah, well, start thinking about it, buddy,’ Steve said.
‘But is it possible, for us, after being friends—’
‘Yes,’ Steve and Kitty said in unison. They caught each other’s eyes and smiled.
Sam looked at them both again, studied them, glancing from one to the other, and Kitty thought he’d finally got it, that the penny had finally dropped, that he would leave them in peace.
‘Do you mind if I sleep in here tonight and you sleep with Mary-Rose? She won’t let me in the room and they’ve no more rooms left,’ he said.
Those words Kitty did not want to hear. She wanted to say no, she was so frustrated, thinking of the possibilities of what could have happened that night, in that terribly squeaky bed. She looked at Steve and he was silently smothering himself with a pillow. Kitty laughed.
‘Sure, Sam. You can have my bed. Just don’t snore or your room-mate will take your life.’
After the events of the day were eventually quietening in Kitty’s head, she felt herself finally drifting closer to sleep when the sound of music coming from outside brought her to the surface again.
She looked across at Mary-Rose who had finally fallen asleep after shedding buckets of tears, then she got out of bed and padded across the creaking floor to see outside.
‘Mary-Rose,’ she hissed at her sleeping room-mate. ‘You have to see this!’
Mary-Rose groggily raised herself onto her elbows and looked around the room, confused as to where she was.
‘Look!’ Kitty said, louder now, excited.
Mary-Rose finally registered the music, got out of bed and joined her at the window. It took her a moment, as it did for Kitty to take the scene in. Slowly, a smile crawled onto her face and she looked at Kitty with delight.
‘Let’s get down there.’
Kitty threw on the clothes she had abandoned before getting into bed and ran downstairs, out of the guesthouse and out onto the road. The night was still, the small town completely shut down, everybody at home and in bed. Above them the clear sky twinkled with a million stars.
St Margaret’s bus had been moved from the car park, and was parked in the middle of the road, blocking off most of it, not that there was any traffic to stop. Its headlights were on full and the engine was running with the windows down. The headlights were pointing directly into the old ballroom, the doors had been opened up, the smell of must and damp drifted out from the abandoned barn, which had been the setting for so many of Birdie’s dance nights.
Dancing in the shadows was Birdie, her eyes closed, her chin lifted to the sky as she twirled round and round, her arms in the air as if dancing with an invisible dance partner to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’.
Eva was sitting behind the wheel of the bus, holding the bus’s microphone to the speaker of the CD player, and standing beside the headlights of the bus were Edward and Molly.
Kitty was entranced by the scene before her. Leaving Mary-Rose, who was equally enchanted, she climbed aboard the bus.
‘You did this?’ Kitty asked Eva.
‘She told me she and Jamie used to break in and dance here at night. This was their favourite song. It’s a late birthday present,’ she said, her eyes filling as she watched Birdie dancing alone in the old ballroom.
As they were watching Birdie dancing alone, Kitty noticed Molly and Edward in the darkness holding each other close as they slowly circled to the music. Kitty believed she had just witnessed Eva’s magic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The next morning, the mood was visibly lifted from the night before. Despite Mary-Rose and Sam not sitting near each other at breakfast, Ambrose and Eugene seemed to be cosy, and Ambrose even shared a few words with Regina, though she would barely look at anybody else. Archie and Regina had shared a room too and their closeness and secret looks the next day were obvious for all to see. Kitty felt a little more awkward around Steve than usual, though, and was battling with how to act around him after their conversation had been interrupted last night, though it was easily covered up by the excitement for Achar and Jedrek’s big moment.
They made sure to eat a healthy breakfast and got plenty of morale-boosting from Archie, who no doubt was still following his plan to help those whose prayers he heard. Kitty didn’t have his ‘gift’ but she could guess what Achar and Jedrek’s prayers were that morning. Steve and Sam were in serious conversation over breakfast, a conversation they continued as soon as they sat beside each other on the bus, and Kitty would have given anything to hear what they were saying. She would have joined in had she not suddenly been at a loss as to how to behave around Steve. Birdie, despite not receiving her money, was in high spirits after her trip down memory lane and her memorable birthday, thanks to Eva, and she was still very much lost in her own mind, falling in and out of conversation as her mind flitted in and out of now and then.
As they were all boarding the bus, the young O’Hara came running out of the bookies with a large envelope in his hand.
‘Bridget!’ he called. ‘Bridget Murphy!’
Birdie paused from stepping onto the bus and turned to him. Edward quickly came to her side and Kitty had no intentions of being anywhere but.
‘I’m glad I caught you. I had a lot of convincing to do this morning,’ he said, red-faced and panting. ‘I’m very sorry about yesterday. My grandmother, she can be … well, she can hold on to some things. Her family loyalty is what we love about her but often it’s her downfall. But I have loyalty too, to my great-grandfather. I know he was as tight as they come, not the most generous man in the world, but he had a great respect for his business and he was a man of his word. If he placed this bet with you, he would like to see you get the winnings. I hope that you’ll accept this money, your winnings, with my greatest respect.’
Birdie looked at him shocked.
‘I was very close to my grandfather Jamie. He spoke about you often,’ he said.
Touched, Birdie held her hands to her mouth, then to his cheeks. He reddened even further. ‘You’re so like him, that when I saw you yesterday, for a moment I thought …’
‘They say there’s a great family resemblance,’ he said, cheeks still blazing.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘God be good to you.’
‘Thank you,’ Edward said.
Kitty helped Birdie on the bus and when they saw the envelope in her hand they all cheered and the celebratory mood was back on again.
‘Come on, college boy,’ Molly called, though her tone wa
s softer this time, and as Edward looked at her, Kitty could see something between them. She was so happy she could have just leaped for joy.
Regina sidled in beside Kitty on the bus.
‘Hello,’ she said shyly. ‘We haven’t had the opportunity to speak yet.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry about that.’
‘Oh, you’ve more important people to talk to,’ she said kindly, ‘For your story. And I won’t keep you, I just wanted to thank you.’
‘No need to thank me, it was a pleasure for your company.’
‘I didn’t mean for the trip, though I am thankful of that, and Archie said you paid for our room and that was very nice of you.’ She looked down at her fingers, thin delicate fingers that looked like they belonged to a doll. ‘But I meant thank you for helping Archie. He said you have done a lot for him. That it was you who told him to talk to me.’
‘I don’t think he needed much persuading,’ Kitty smiled. ‘He had his eye on you every time I spoke.’
She blushed at that.
‘Well, because of you helping him, he has helped me, so for that I’m truly grateful.’
‘He told you about his … ability?’ Kitty couldn’t think of any word for it because in truth she wasn’t sure if it was a gift or a curse. If it had helped him meet Regina and if it led to his happiness then she was sure it was a gift but she didn’t envy him for it.
‘Yes, he did. I heard his entire story and he’s a very special man, that much I’m sure of,’ she said firmly, implying she wasn’t sure if she believed the rest.
‘He’s been through a lot,’ Kitty agreed. ‘Can I ask a personal question? You don’t have to tell me your personal story but … I’m interested to know, was he right about you?’
‘About my prayers?’
‘Yes. He said that you would sit there saying “please”.’
‘I wasn’t conscious of it.’ She looked down at her fingers again. ‘But I suppose that is what I was thinking.’
Kitty nodded, dying to hear more but not wanting to push it. Archie was her story, not Regina, but her interest in people was in her blood, at least that’s what Constance had always told her.
‘I was in a relationship,’ Regina said out of the blue when Kitty hadn’t been expecting any further explanation. ‘For a very long time.’ She had that haunted look again that Kitty recognised from seeing her in the café. ‘But he no longer wanted to be in the relationship. All of a sudden. Just one day. He didn’t give much of a reason. He said it didn’t matter but …’ she shrugged. ‘I found it hard to let go. He moved out, changed his number, changed his job. It was like he vanished off the face of the earth. But then I saw him in there one day, at that time in the morning, when I was passing, and I got such a fright that I couldn’t go to him. I wasn’t ready to say what I wanted to say. I walked on, turned the corner, changed my mind and went back but he was gone. It’s the only place I had ever seen him. People we knew had no contact with him. I think he had an episode of some kind; he just dropped his life and made a new one. He wanted to disappear, but I found him in there. I just didn’t have the nerve to go inside. I thought that maybe he’d go back, that that was somewhere he went to regularly, so I started going. He never turned up but I couldn’t miss a day. I kept thinking: what if today is the day he comes back? And then I couldn’t stop going. And the months went by and I still couldn’t stop going. Even when I tried to go elsewhere it was as if he was pulling me back. I would always end up there. I know it’s odd behaviour.’ She looked at Kitty nervously. ‘My family, they were worried about me. I know it wasn’t normal but I couldn’t stop. It was the only new link I had to him. So I kept going, hoping. I always believed in fate. And destiny. And all of those things that I know most people don’t believe in. I thought it was a sign, that I saw him there once and I would see him there again. But now I don’t really understand the point of it all. I never saw him again. It’s been a year,’ she said, almost ashamed with herself for keeping up that behaviour.
‘You met Archie there,’ Kitty said, fascinated with this woman, with this story. ‘That was the point. Your old love brought you back there but maybe it wasn’t to find him, maybe it was so you could meet Archie. If ever there was a sign or fate or destiny, surely that’s it,’ Kitty said, truly believing her words just then, despite the fact she didn’t believe in any of those things.
It was as though the thought occurred to Regina for the very first time. Her eyes lit up. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Well, I mean, I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like it to me. If you hadn’t been brought there by your ex, well then, you never would have met Archie, would you?’
Regina smiled at that and her shoulders relaxed as she accepted the idea. ‘You know, this morning was the very first morning in a year that I didn’t go to the café,’ she admitted quietly.
‘And, how do you feel about it?’
She thought about it, looked as if she was going to say something, then backed down.
‘Your honest answer,’ Kitty warned her, and she smiled.
‘Well, honestly, I think that today is the day that he was there. In the café.’
This response took Kitty by surprise.
‘What do you think?’ she asked Kitty.
Kitty thought about it. Thought about Murphy’s Law and the odds in life and she finally couldn’t lie. ‘I think you’re probably right.’
Regina nodded once, then again as she accepted it. She looked across the row to Archie, who was giving Achar and Jedrek tips on breathing. ‘But I’m glad I’m here,’ she said.
Kitty smiled. ‘I’m glad you’re here too, Regina.’
‘We’re here,’ Molly announced, and everybody started stamping their feet on the ground in a big build-up for Achar and Jedrek, who were beginning to look decidedly nervous.
‘Don’t worry, lads, we have an hour,’ Archie said, noticing their panic, speaking as if he was now part of the team. ‘Even if the adjudicator doesn’t come, we can still do this.’
The plan was for them all to take a walk around Kinsale Harbour on the beautifully sunny May day, as Jedrek and Achar prepared for their record attempt, but then the bride and groom had an alternative idea when they saw Eva.
‘Bring your guests in with you,’ George’s sister, the bride, announced as she greeted Eva and Kitty at the door to the wedding reception. They had finished the meal and the speeches, much to Kitty’s relief, and they were sitting down to eat the freshly cut cake. But this didn’t allow Eva and Kitty much time to get back to Dublin. They needed to be on the road by 3 p.m.
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly do that,’ Eva said. ‘There are so many of them and they’re really not expecting to be invited.’
‘How many are there?’
‘Fourteen people, so we really don’t expect—’
‘Yoohoo!’ she sang to a sweaty member of staff holding three cameras in his hand and taking a group photo of a dozen happy family members. ‘Can we set up an extra table in the banquet room, please?’ she said breezily as if there wasn’t a care in the world.
George Webb’s Kinsale home was a stunning waterside house on the Bandon River estuary right on Kinsale Harbour. It had a long lawn, which led to the river at the bottom of the garden where a sizeable yacht was sitting in the water.
Kitty and her unlikely crew stepped off the bus and joined the wedding reception, all feeling underdressed for such an event. All but Eva, that was, who was a vision in her dress and whom everybody had wolf-whistled at when she climbed aboard the bus. As soon as George Webb saw her he left his conversation and went to her. Kitty looked around for a sign of his girlfriend and couldn’t see her.
As they dug into the delicious chocolate biscuit cake, Kitty realised why Eva had come with very few bags: the kind of gifts Kitty had so far witnessed Eva give to people weren’t the type to be hidden in bags and just as she had this thought, a song began to play from the back of the room. Conversation took a while to end as word spr
ead and finally you could hear a pin drop. The song was ‘My Wild Irish Rose’ and the singers were two old men, one wearing a red waistcoat with a red and white striped shirt underneath, the other with corresponding yellow and white. They wore white trousers and straw hats with their matching colour ribbon around the rim. Assuming it was part of the wedding musical entertainment everybody stopped eating and turned to watch and listen, but there was one man who knew differently and who slowly rose from his place at the head table, body trembling, eyes shining as he watched the remaining members of his barber shop band, Sweet Harmony, with whom he’d toured the country with fifty years ago. Kitty put their ages at around eighty, like George’s grandfather, Seamus, and guessed their fourth member had not been as lucky as they to make it to this stage of his life. As soon as they had everybody’s attention, they began weaving their way around the circular tables, eyes bright, big smiles on their faces, entertaining and endearing, voices no doubt more tired than they used to be and missing two crucial harmonies to their song, shoulders hunched and hands arthritic, but they eventually reached the head table where people expected them to address the bride and groom. Instead they went to Seamus, the man standing with his hand on his heart, the affection clearly on his face, his eyes filled with tears. He joined in for the last few lines of the song and as soon as they’d finished, the two men broke into singing ‘Happy Birthday to You’.
When the applause had ended everybody’s eyes remained fixed on Seamus, waiting for an explanation, waiting for something more. Seamus was locked in an embrace with the two men, and all were emotional, heads together, showing a bond between them which would make even the kindest of people envious.
Seamus finally looked up to the crowd. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, bride and groom,’ he addressed his granddaughter, who was wiping a tear from her eye, ‘I know we’re finished with the speeches but I couldn’t let this moment go by without saying a few words, if I may.’
The bride and groom enthusiastically encouraged him to speak.
‘I haven’t seen these men for fifty years,’ he said, grabbing them again, and they stood together, side by side, arm in arm. ‘We used to be in a group named Sweet Harmony. We toured the country up and down, left and right, didn’t we, boys?’