The woman thanked her. ‘No, I’ll risk the little walk. And if I can’t make it the whole way, I’ll just holler.’
Miss Purcell looked after her with interest. Now, who could she be? She looked a bit . . . overdressed, a bit foreign to be any kind of lady friend. Maybe someone he had met on an aeroplane or somesuch. Time would tell. They’d soon know.
Fergus Slattery had been out in the country making a will for a dying farmer. It was the last thing he had to do before he went back to pack. The old man clutched at him and thanked him for his patience.
‘But then you wouldn’t be your father’s son if you were any other way,’ he wheezed.
‘Was my father patient?’ Fergus had worked beside the older man for years and realised that he was certainly well read and certainly slow.
‘He had all the time in the world for you. It’s the hallmark of the busy man; they never look rushed.’
That was true of Patrick O’Neill, Fergus thought ruefully; he seemed to have time for chats and pints and strolls along the river bank. He had time to come and talk to the angling club and show them new flies he had brought from somewhere on his travels, chatting in a leisurely way, while all the time there were huge deals being done in New York to move money here and there, to finance even huger investments for his Fernscourt project. Already the walls were in evidence – only feet above the ground, but within a few months of levelling of the ruin the new order was beginning to appear.
Fergus shook himself back into the present.
‘Well, I do have all the time in the world, so now if there’s any little thing here that isn’t clear to you, I can read it over again with you, Danny.’
‘No, it seems fair enough, fair enough.’
‘And sure, you’ve all the time in the world yourself, if you want to change anything,’ Fergus lied into the man’s eyes. ‘When I come back from my holidays you can ask me to come up here again, if you’ve anything you want to add or take away.’
‘When you come back from your holidays, boy, I’ll be in the churchyard, and we both know that. I’ll tell your father that you’re doing a good job.’
‘If you see him, will you ask him to send me a message about what in God’s name he did with the papers in the Scanlan case? They’re irretrievably lost and I have someone on to me about them every month.’
The old man laughed, the thought of death pushed further away.
Fergus felt better himself. He thought he might call into Ryan’s for a lunchtime pint. Since he had closed his own office he was childishly light-hearted, he felt his holiday had begun. He said goodbye to the old man he would never see again, and drove off towards Ryan’s.
That funny thin woman with the Dutch-doll colouring hadn’t lied, Rachel thought, when she saw what a fair step it was to walk towards the busy site. She looked again at her shoes and said this was madness. Even squinting into the sunlight she couldn’t see Patrick amongst the diggers, the earthmovers and the men going in and out of a prefab hut which must be the site office.
She stood for a while looking at the scene which was the heart’s desire of the man she loved. It was as incomprehensible to her, now that she was four hundred yards from it, as when she had been three thousand miles away from it. Perhaps she had been foolish to come here on her own. Maybe she should have waited. But that hotel was beginning to make her flesh crawl. She had lain without closing her eyes on that uncomfortable bed in the garish room. Sleep would not come But it had benefited her nothing to come this far. Unless, of course, he was in the habit of calling at this public house for his lunch. She went up to the front door and into Ryan’s.
She had assumed it would be a simple place; it certainly didn’t look much from the outside but at least they had the good sense not to change the front and destroy the whole feel of the place like so many others, notably the dreaded Slieve Sunset, had done. She had thought it might be dark, and there might be men who would resent a woman calling in for a morning drink.
What she had not expected was a totally empty saloon with a husband and wife embracing each other behind the bar. The woman was dark-haired and good-looking, with tears running down her face. The man was sandy and plump, and looked as if someone had just told him that he had won the Irish Sweepstake.
But it was far better than that. John Ryan was holding the Irish Press newspaper of that day, in which his first poem had been published.
It was a poem called ‘Sleep in Peace’, and it was telling the Fern family to sleep peacefully in their graves because the old order had changed. They must rest on and never come back because everything was so changed that they wouldn’t be able to walk as Lords of the Soil, as they once had. It was both gentle and savage. John had written it to put in the book that he was doing for Patrick, then his confidence had failed and he thought that perhaps Patrick wouldn’t like it. Kate had urged him to show it to someone who might know. She had typed it out and posted it to the Irish Press, which sometimes published poetry.
There it was, in black and white in the paper. He had only turned to the page five minutes before, and had come in shouting and roaring like a bull from the garden. Leopold, genuinely frightened for once, was whimpering under a table.
Rachel Fine had never seen such intense excitement and pleasure. She felt utterly out of place, as if she had intruded into a marriage bed.
‘I guess I’m a little early for bar hours,’ she said.
They disentangled themselves, and Kate wiped her eyes.
‘You must excuse us, ma’am,’ said John. ‘But you arrived at a big moment for us. Can we ask you to share it . . . whatever you like to drink. Anything at all. This is a big celebration.’
Kate was composed. ‘My husband has just had his first literary work published. Here it is in the newspaper. We’re so pleased. It’s been so long.’
‘And Kate never lost faith in me; she never thought for a minute that I wouldn’t succeed.’ The man’s face gave off rays like the sun.
Rachel looked politely at the paper. ‘Oh, it’s about the Ferns,’ she cried.
‘They used to own that house . . . well, the house that was over there.’ John was so excited he could hardly talk.
‘John, give the lady the promised drink and give me one too,’ Kate said.
Rachel looked from one to another. ‘I’m useless; I’m an orange-juice lady. I have no business being in a bar at all. I’m sorry not to be more festive on your great occasion.’
‘I’m often an orange-juice lady myself,’ Kate confided. ‘But I daren’t say it in a public house. It’s bad for business. You are most welcome to a nice glass of Club Orange if you’re sure that’s what you’d like.’
John was staring at the paper as if it might vanish before his eyes.
‘I’m Rachel Fine,’ Rachel said, stretching out her hand. ‘I work for Patrick O’Neill, I’m his designer and adviser.’
Kate thrilled with sudden recognition. My God, he’s got a fancy woman, she said to herself as she shook hands with the well-groomed woman and poured her a Club Orange to celebrate the success of the poem.
Rachel suggested that John go and buy up several copies of the paper, which he thought was a great idea. If Leonard’s didn’t have any more copies left, they could telephone somebody in the big town to keep some copies, or even the paper itself. They could get them copied too on a photocopier. He would enquire about that too when he was in Bridge Street.
‘Don’t be gone all day,’ Kate said. ‘There’s bound to be a bit of a crowd in at lunchtime.’
‘I’ll be back. Won’t I want to show them?’ Like an excited child he headed off down River Road. Kate knew he would stop first to tell Loretto Quinn, and could see her clapping her hands with pleasure for him.
‘You must think we’re quite mad,’ Kate said to Rachel. ‘Any other day of the year, you’d come in here and find us the most quiet respectable pub in the country. In fact I’d be up in the solicitor’s office where I work in the mornings. But today is
such a red-letter day, you have no idea, you really don’t.’
‘I do, I can see only too clearly how pleased you are for him,’ Rachel said.
It wasn’t the words, which were ordinary enough, but it was the way she said them that made Kate more expansive than usual. Normally she never told anyone what she felt about John.
‘You see I wouldn’t mind if he never wrote a poem that was published. I wouldn’t want any fame or money or anything for me or for us out of his writing. But it’s him. Often he says he’s only a fool to be scribbling and writing, and maybe he’s half-cracked to have such notions. Now he’ll never think that again. His dream is official, as it were.’ She gave a little laugh at this definition of John’s dream.
‘That’s a wonderful way of putting it,’ Rachel said. ‘His dream is official. Like Patrick’s dream. I suppose now that he sees brick going on brick, he knows it’s official.’ The two women looked across the river at the huge building site up the slope.
In a gentle voice Kate said, ‘Patrick will be over shortly, he nearly always comes in at lunchtime.’
In a couple of sentences they had exchanged a great deal of information. And without saying very much at all they knew they were going to be great friends.
It was indeed busy at lunchtime as Kate had predicted, and with all kinds of unexpected people. Miss Barry had decided to begin what looked like a spectacular breakout by sitting on a bar stool and ordering a brandy and port. She had rarely been seen in a public house before; all her drinking had been done from surreptitious paper bags bought in off-sales in the big town.
Kate managed to get her out by saying that they had neither brandy nor port for sale in the pub, but if Miss Barry liked, she could give her a half bottle of each in a private transaction since she was sure that Miss Barry wanted them for medicinal purposes at home. This brought Miss Barry to her limited senses and she slipped away with two small brown-paper parcels towards a three-day binge and a spectacular hangover.
Fergus Slattery came in to say goodbye and said the place was like Portsmouth on pay night, with all the activity. When Kate told him about the poem, his pleasure was so genuine it touched her heart. He went straight to John and congratulated him loudly. He promised to tell everyone at the hotel he was going to that he knew the poet himself, and John Ryan’s ears pinked up with the pleasure of it all.
Jimbo Doyle, who wouldn’t have read a poem in a million years normally, said that all the children above with the brothers and the nuns should be made to learn it off by heart, and that it should be recited at the next concert.
In the middle of it all Patrick O’Neill came in. He didn’t see Rachel, now on her third orange juice and happily settled in. He looked preoccupied and somehow annoyed to see so many people.
‘Any chance of a word with yourself and John today?’ he asked.
‘Fire ahead,’ Kate said. ‘I may have to interrupt you, John’s buying drinks for everybody, he had a poem published.’
‘That’s good,’ Patrick said mechanically. ‘It’s just that . . .’
‘Oh, Patrick,’ Kate’s face was stricken. ‘Don’t say “That’s good”, it’s much more than good. For God’s sake the man has had his first poem published and you just say “That’s good”. It’s magnificent, that’s what it is.’ Her eyes had begun to blaze at the inadequacy of his remark.
Patrick realised he had been crass. ‘I’m sorry, I had something on my mind . . . I beg your pardon . . . where is he . . . must tell him how pleased I am.’
‘That’s more like it.’
‘I am sorry, I know it sounds mean-spirited of me, I genuinely am pleased, it’s just that there’s something I’m anxious about . . .’
‘Oh, she’s here . . .’ Kate cried triumphantly. ‘I’m sorry, I should have said it before . . . she’s over there behind the snug. Rachel, Rachel, Patrick’s here.’
Patrick’s face was in a tight line where his mouth had been. How had it happened that Kate Ryan seemed to have guessed immediately that Rachel was more than a member of his staff, and why did she feel able to call this fact out familiarly across the pub?
He had been mad to let Rachel come here in the first place. He saw her then, surrounded by local people and laughing. But she looked wrong, she could never be part of this place. He must make that clear soon. Sweet Lord, how had it all turned into this, making things clear to people, speaking his mind?
Rachel looked up and waved at him nice and casually, as she would have done back home.
‘Well, Mr O’Neill, I made it to Ireland. Isn’t it a great place?’ she said, and his heart softened towards her again. Things were getting very complicated indeed.
By three o’clock the bar was empty. John and Kate were exhausted. The glasses were washed; two clean cloths, washed through after the polishing, lay across the beer and stout pumps. The place was ready for any afternoon visitor who might stray in, and for the teatime trade.
‘God, if we were to have a crowd like that again we’d have to hire a young lad,’ John said.
‘There speaks the man with the second income,’ Kate teased.
‘Wasn’t it great when Patrick read it out?’ John said.
Kate had thought Patrick’s mind was miles away but she didn’t say that.
‘I’m very, very proud of you,’ she said.
‘Would we risk it and go up to bed for a while?’ he said.
‘Are you mad?’
‘Ah go on, we could ask Carrie to step in here.’
‘And what would she think?’
‘Does it matter what she thinks?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, John, the children could come home.’
The twins had gone for a picnic with Grace, Eddie was out with his gang of toughs, Declan could be anywhere.
‘Let them, the door would be locked.’
‘We’ll lock it tonight instead,’ she said.
‘And what am I going to do here, mad with desire for you?’
‘Why don’t you look through your other poems, the ones we liked, and you could maybe give me some of them. I’ll type them and you can always say I have had work published already, I enclose an example . . .’
‘But there’s only one example . . .’
‘You don’t have to tell them that,’ Kate said.
‘God, you’re a fox, Kate. Between yourself and Patrick O’Neill you could rule the world. There’s a pair of you in it.’
‘I hope not,’ Kate said, shivering slightly.
‘And what are you going to do if you’re not going to fulfil your marital duties?’ John asked sulkily.
‘I’m going to have a little walk. I’m restless and over-excited . . . but no I do not see a way to cure all that. I’m not going to let us become the talk of the neighbourhood by abandoning our pub and going off to bed in the middle of the afternoon.’ She skipped out of his way and took her cardigan off the back of a chair.
‘Go on, John, get your poems down, truly now . . . I love the one about the nun looking into the river, the nun with the very sad face.’
She walked out and stretched in the sunshine. She had said the truth, she was restless and over-excited. She was happy for John in a way she had never expected to be, but everywhere around her, like a big black cloud, she felt a sense of danger. Even when Patrick had said he wanted to talk to them she had thought it was going to be something bad, and was glad that the crowds and the circumstances had meant he couldn’t bring up whatever it was. It was like a reprieve.
She felt there was something odd about Kerry. It wasn’t that he never smiled – his face was one big smile, for God’s sake, with those perfect white teeth. And he couldn’t be more polite. It wasn’t anything to do with Grace. The twins seemed to love her, and she was a warm little thing, all smiles too.
She really couldn’t say that the work on Fernscourt had harmed their business. When else had they been full on a Tuesday at lunchtime? And perhaps these people would keep coming back even when the building work
s were over. So why then was she restless? Was it the holidays and knowing that young Fergus was off to find himself a woman? Surely not. She wanted Fergus to find himself a woman.
She crossed the footbridge and looked up at the site. Patrick would not be there now, he had told Rachel that he would drive out to the Slieve Sunset with her and see if they could make any improvements. Kate wondered why on earth she hadn’t been allowed to go to the Grange and then remembered that Grace was at the lodge and might suspect something. Could that be it?
It would be very hard to be in love with Patrick O’Neill, hard to come first in his life. There would always be business, or the children, or travel or long-distance telephone calls. Kate sighed thinking of it all, and wished Rachel Fine luck in her uphill struggle. She remembered how warm and nice Patrick had been that day last week when they had gone to see President Kennedy arrive in Dublin. He had been so anxious to please them all with drinks and sandwiches in the big Dublin hotel. He had hardly ever stopped smiling and laughing. It would be easy to fall in love with him. She walked up the slope that the twins used to think of as their own private boreen at one time, now more open and exposed with a lot of the brambles and briars cut away. She hadn’t been in to look at the site since the foundations were dug and already the walls were showing, so that you could see the shape it would be.
Kate felt she must know what it was going to be like, no point in being like an ostrich any more. She was going to go right up there and look, and ask Brian Doyle which room was which, and talk about it to Patrick O’Neill, and ask Rachel Fine what kind of colours it was going to be. She quickened her step and threw back her head with confidence. There’s a time for everything, she thought. I wasn’t ready to know about it before, but I’m ready now.
She saw Brian Doyle waving at her frantically as she approached the site. He had both hands in the air and was shouting something. But she hadn’t heard what it was by the time she felt the terrifying sharp pain. It was so sudden and worse than anything she had ever known, like the terror in a dream or a nightmare. And it only lasted seconds, because that was all it took for Kate Ryan to be hit sideways by the huge digger, flung up in the air and crashed to the ground. It only took a few seconds to break her spine.