The Beach at Doonshean

by Penny Feeny

  The last time Vince had seen Ronnie she’d been fatigued and dishevelled like a creature at the end of its tether. Now she was magnificent in a deep crimson dress with a splendid cleavage. She was stout to be sure – you wouldn’t lose her in a bed – but she was an imposing woman. People were saying it was her sheer determination that had kept Pat going, pulled him through such gruelling treatment. She was mightily attached to her menfolk. If she had a weakness – and didn’t everybody? – it was the way she treated that son of hers. But that’s how it was with parents. They didn’t have the objective view.

  *

  The floor of the function room was polished parquet, good for dancing and for children to skid about in their socks. Bel was glad she was wearing flat pumps. She wouldn’t want to risk another fall; tonight in itself would be enough of a balancing act. She was still aggrieved at her brother for not being more supportive. Bloody Matt, she’d cursed. Overcautious as ever. It had been the same when they were growing up. There was no point in consulting him: she had to get into a scrape first, then she knew he would cover for her. This afternoon she’d have welcomed some advice in handling the situation, but wimping out and telling her not to come was plain pathetic.

  She was struggling to decipher Vince Hogan’s country accent (which was why she’d been rabbiting on about their excursion) when Kieran approached. Vince hailed him with great enthusiasm, embracing him heartily and running through an exchange of what might have been pleasantries or insults but which defeated Bel. Kieran turned to her.

  ‘It’s good to see you here,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure we’d persuaded you to come.’

  ‘Oh no, I was keen. Honestly. We’re crap in England at these multi-generational dos.’

  ‘True enough.’ He nodded towards the keyboard player. ‘But do you not think the music’s shite?’

  When she laughed in agreement, he put his hand at her elbow and steered her towards a quieter part of the room. Vince, sinking back into his seat, was soon joined by another elderly man with a thatch of white hair and a tweedy jacket that could have been woven from bracken and peat.

  Kieran leaned on the sill of the window; the panes of glass were fogged with condensation. ‘Tom’s been overdoing the drink,’ he said. ‘I wanted to warn you.’

  ‘Is it nerves, d’you think?’

  ‘I doubt he’d admit to it.’

  ‘That’s stupid. It would be perfectly understandable. I was totally freaked myself when I heard.’ She clinked the ice in her Magners. ‘But I’m going back to Coke after this.’

  ‘Tom doesn’t need much of an excuse to hit the bottle.’

  She searched the crowd, but couldn’t see him. ‘Is it very noticeable?’ she asked. ‘I mean, if you were someone who’d never met him before, would you think: what a complete tosser?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you thought yourself?’

  ‘On the boat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, in a way. But…’ But she was an idiot, wasn’t she? She’d been beguiled by Tom’s louche demeanour, by his sudden spurts of sensitivity, his undeniable good looks. ‘I guess he spiked my interest too. And he’s lovely with Clemmie – she adores him, doesn’t she?’

  ‘What is it with women!’ exclaimed Kieran. ‘Why are they so easily fooled?’

  ‘We’re not fooled by the man,’ said Bel. ‘It’s our hopes that are unrealistic. But you could say that of anything, couldn’t you? And if you got too cynical you’d never make any improvements at all. I wouldn’t expect it of you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cynicism.’

  He laughed. ‘And why not? Can’t I be as jaundiced a sod as the next person?’

  ‘Well I just thought… I know the Church bangs on about hell and damnation but surely a priest needs to believe in the goodness of people. I mean I know you’re not actually a priest but if you had the training and everything…’

  Kieran stared at her. ‘You didn’t believe all that baloney?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ She squirmed a little as she spoke, recalling the nonsense stories she’d told to strangers to help enliven a journey. Those people had believed her. And she had half-convinced herself. Where was the harm in trying on a new identity and parading it to someone you would never meet again? But this was different – because they had met again, more than once, and because the brothers had ganged up on her. The dice was unfairly loaded.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have teased you, but it wasn’t a total lie. I did very briefly think of going into the Church, but I was being contrary. You see Tom was considered too good to be a farmer so I was intended to take over the reins. And this was my form of rebellion. A good Catholic, like my mother, wouldn’t argue with God’s calling.’

  ‘Sounds a bit extreme!’

  ‘I think I believed it at the time, but it didn’t take me long to find out I was wrong. I’m not much better at taking decisions than my brother, am I? Fled to England and got married far too quickly.’

  ‘Married?’ Bel was finding the whole conversation topsy-turvy. She was beginning to feel hot and sticky, but she couldn’t take off any layers because she didn’t want to expose the savage bruising on her arm, its appearance worse today than when it happened. People would think she’d been assaulted. ‘But you both told me you weren’t.’

  ‘Divorced,’ he explained. ‘So you see, that wasn’t a lie either. I won’t slag her off, I’ll just say we were incompatible.’

  ‘So do you mean…’ said Bel slowly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just thought, because of the priest stuff…’ Her voice tailed off. What did it matter if Kieran wasn’t gay? It was Tom who had kissed her. Twice. Though, really, what was the significance of a kiss, however passionate, when shagging was as commonplace as shopping?

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I see one cliché following another.’

  ‘But Tom said—’

  ‘You don’t want to pay heed to any remark of Tom’s.’

  ‘No, I realise that now.’

  Kieran’s thumbs were looped into his belt, his fingers tapping a rhythm in time to the music. Bel found herself staring at them for no better reason than that she didn’t want to look at his face. She could feel him watching her intently. ‘So,’ he said after a while. ‘Did you get the flowers?’

  ‘Yes, but how…?’

  ‘You were still sleeping and your mother didn’t want to wake you. I’m not much good at these things but I do think tulips have a fine shape and yellow is a colour to cheer you up. I’m not enamoured of those elaborate, fancy contrivances they fix up with staples and raffia and God knows what, but I hope you didn’t think it was sheer meanness because it wasn’t…’

  ‘You brought the flowers?’

  ‘Did your mother not tell you?’

  ‘Well yes, she did, only…’

  ‘Only what?’ He sighed in a resigned sort of way. ‘Did you think I was overstepping a line? You’ve already a poor opinion of us, no doubt.’

  Bel squirmed again. Kieran had behaved with absolute propriety from the moment he had offered her the lift. He’d shown concern for her injury. He’d made more effort than Tom to unite Clemmie with her grandparents. He was totally sound. And, foolishly, she had overlooked all this in favour of the flashy allure of his brother. ‘No!’ she insisted. ‘I have a very high opinion of you! I feel bad because I should have thanked you from the off. My brain must be full of holes. I’m so sorry. Look, can we start again? Thank you, Kieran, for bringing me tulips. I love tulips. And you should have stayed. I wish you had.’

  25

  The Meeting

  Julia was ill at ease, wishing she hadn’t come, that she hadn’t let Bel persuade her. She had managed to escape Teresa and was planning to slip out to the car park. Earlier that day she’d had another text from Leo:

  The world is full of fuckers. I miss you.

  Once, her instinct would have been to console him, but those times were over. She didn’t
know what game he was playing and she’d been debating whether to reply. A few minutes in the cool evening air, away from Bel’s likely interference, might enable her to compose a message more grown-up than piss off and leave me alone. But before she could reach the door she was waylaid by a tall, striking woman draped in folds and pleats of cream silk like a Greek statue and wavering on high-heeled sandals.

  ‘Anna Malone,’ said the woman, holding out her hand.

  ‘I’m Julia—’

  In the middle of their handshake a small boy ricocheted into Anna’s legs. She swept the child into her arms, fished a paper tissue from her clutch bag and wiped his nose.

  Julia waited; Anna apologised. ‘Sorry about this. He has the catarrh permanently.’

  ‘Does he drink a lot of milk?’

  Anna blinked in surprise. ‘Well to be sure he does. We can’t be giving him Coca-Cola to rot his baby teeth.’

  ‘It can be mucous-forming, that’s all,’ Julia said. ‘He may be having problems with his adenoids. Children usually grow out of it as the adenoids shrink.’

  Why was she doing this? She’d made it a rule never to give advice unless asked and even then it would be limited to suggesting the person visit their own doctor. In effect she was stalling, stalling because she now realised who this Anna Malone was. She’d seen her emerge from the private room where the Farrelly family had been dining.

  Anna set down her son and adjusted the pleated fabric that had slipped from her shoulder; her complexion gleamed under the dancing lights.

  ‘You are the Englishwoman,’ she said.

  It was a neutral, irrefutable statement. Julia was relieved not to have to broach the connection herself. ‘Oh goodness. Do I stick out so badly?’

  ‘Tis only that we’re not at the height of the tourist season yet. Sometimes you can hardly get by on the pavements. We have so many visitors wandering about they merge all together. And Teresa Hogan is proud to be a source of information.’

  Julia wondered what was going through the woman’s head, whether she felt guilt or remorse. The sisters had been in charge of their little brother that day on the beach. Was she the one who had come to the inquest?

  ‘So you are here with your daughter,’ Anna was saying. ‘And would you believe it, she had already met my brother?’

  Over Anna’s shoulder, Julia could see Bel leaning against the wall beside a window, deep in conversation with the young man who had called around to see her yesterday. Cheap, Julia had thought at first sight of the tulips, but then amended her reaction to: simple, unshowy. There was something to be said, after all, for gestures that were understated. There were far too many people these days leaping about, yelling: Look at me! She recalled taking the flowers off him, the brush of their fingers and Bel telling her afterwards this was Tom Farrelly.

  ‘On the ferry,’ said Julia. ‘Extraordinary.’

  ‘He doesn’t visit us often. Neither of them. Kieran’s been in England for years too. He married a girl from Yorkshire and was settled there for a while. But the marriage fell apart as these things do. No wee ones thank goodness. But maybe your daughter has also told you about Clemmie?’

  Julia could see the little girl dancing with her cousins – the children had taken over the dance floor and no adults had joined them yet.

  ‘Yes, she said it was a difficult meeting. I can imagine.’

  Bel had been quite specific on the awkwardness of the encounter. She’d also insisted it wasn’t Tom’s fault he only found out about his daughter after his father’s cancer was diagnosed and had thus delayed the news. It wasn’t a good beginning, but you had to be realistic. Julia was glad to be able to observe him from a distance, to note the thoughtful way his brow wrinkled, the gentle stroke as he stretched to touch Bel’s arm, the way he made her smile.

  The band could keep a tune going even while quaffing their pints (frequently replenished) and the bouncing rhythms were beginning to drive her a little mad. She tried to block out this background noise by focusing on Bel and the Farrelly boy. He was not really a boy, of course, but an adult like Matt – though there were occasions when this fact bemused her, when she’d confuse Danny with Matt at the same age. The years would contract and she’d slip though this crevice of time to find herself engaging with a solemn brown-eyed child whose desire to please was quite heart-rending.

  ‘They seem to be getting on well.’ She didn’t want to say anything that might be misconstrued. She needed to meet him and shake hands formally so they could put their acquaintance on a suitable footing. Until then it was like ploughing through shifting sands. You could never quite tell where you stood.

  Anna turned and followed her gaze. ‘He’s always been the shy one,’ she said. ‘I mean, within our family. We none of us lack the ability to come forward and put our point across, but Kieran, well, we used to call him the listener.’

  ‘Kieran?’ There had been a dying away of the music, a semibreve’s intermission and now they were striking up again. There was no doubt she’d heard the name correctly. Besides, it was how he had introduced himself. It was only Bel, in her scattiness, who’d insisted it must have been Tom. Was it possible, Julia wondered, that she’d got the brothers confused somehow, that she didn’t know which was which?

  ‘So tell me, Anna,’ she said, squeezing the stem of her wineglass. ‘Where is your brother, Tom?’

  ‘Ah well now…’ Anna raked the room, then settled on a figure at the bar. She gave a light dry laugh. ‘He’s where you’d expect to find him, is he not.’ She tried to attract his attention with a wave but the man she’d indicated didn’t see her. With a glass held high in each hand he began to zigzag through the throng, aiming for the couple by the window. She called out but he didn’t hear.

  ‘Don’t put yourself to any bother,’ said Julia. ‘I can go and join them.’

  She’d half expected the automatic response: No bother at all, but another guest, an older man in a waistcoat with shiny buttons that gave him the look of a leprechaun, curled his arm around Anna’s waist; she squealed and returned the embrace. Julia manoeuvred herself away. She wasn’t quite ready to interrupt Bel. She wanted first to get a feel for the young man who had grown up with this charmed life – the life snatched back and restored.

  She watched Tom reach his target and set the drinks with careful deliberation on the windowsill. Stepping away, he staggered and overbalanced. She assumed he’d slipped on some spillage on the floor. At any rate, Bel’s arms shot out to save him from falling because the other brother, Kieran, had turned aside. What Julia had not expected was to see Tom, in response, crush Bel against the wall and glue his mouth to hers.

  She was both shocked and astonished. Bel had sometimes, in the past, told her more than she wanted to know about her sexual adventures. Sitting cross-legged on a floor cushion, describing her night of bliss in grand passionate gestures – or storming through the hallway, banging doors, red-eyed with weeping – little was left to the imagination. Latterly she had matured. Julia recalled her assurances that she’d be taking a suitcase full of condoms to Africa (ironic in the circumstances), that there was nothing for her mother to worry about.

  But not this, not him. The pair had only met a few days ago; surely, now that Bel realised his identity and the significance of it, even she, with her tendency to rush unsuspecting into trouble, would halt at this point. Then, still gazing in bewilderment, it became apparent to Julia that Tom’s advances were unwelcome; Bel was trying to push him away.

  She felt the tension knot along her spine. She’d wondered, fleetingly, through the years, what had happened to the boy William rescued. If diagnosing a child with a heart murmur or a potential tumour, the thought would skim across her consciousness that saving his life might only have been a temporary reprieve, that he might not even have reached adulthood. But she didn’t dwell on his prospects; speculate. Yet here he was, in person, a few yards away: tousled and boorish, thrusting himself at her dismayed daughter. This was not a moment she
had ever expected to reach.

  Perhaps it was the contrast with the fantasy in her head – the polite greeting, the grave exchange of pleasantries – that coiled the anger so tight inside her chest she thought she would explode. She should leave; she should turn on her heel and get out of this noisy overheated place. A fine rain had been misting the air when they arrived, so soft it didn’t so much fall as hang in suspension, webbing their faces like gossamer. In the mild Irish night she could breathe deeply, take stock, calm down. Her expectations had been too high: don’t interfere.

  Then she recalled the bruising on Bel’s arm, the story about trapping it in a door. This man was the worst type of all, an irresponsible father, a bully and a drunk: sending his brother round with flowers to buy Bel’s silence, and now assaulting her in public, not caring who he offended. Assault was possibly too strong a term, but Julia was not in a rational mood. She was convinced Bel was struggling to fend him off and felt an over-riding compulsion to protect her.

  An image surfaced of Leo with his paramour: the girl who had delighted in being indiscreet. She could hear buttons popping and jeans unzipped, the clink of the tell-tale earrings. Her outrage swelled. She barged through a nearby knot of drinkers, squaring her shoulders for confrontation. Her voice was higher pitched than she intended.

  ‘Whatever do you think you are doing?’

  Tom was nuzzling Bel’s neck and ignored the interruption. Bel said, ‘For God’s sake!’

  Kieran moved to allow Julia access. He didn’t speak. She waited.

  Tom raised his head and a wide sheepish grin sliced across his face. He swayed a little.