The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer

by Tyler, Anne

  The conversations began and died.

  Apart from Grace O’Neill: she seemed not to notice any little silences any shyness, her laughter pealed, she begged for chips, and more fizzy orange. She praised the room over and over, she admired the girls’ dresses, and said that she was just dying to dance. Could they get some music started? And arm in arm with Maggie, who looked nervous in a pink dress with a thousand polka dots on it, she rummaged through the records, exclaiming over them even though they were her own. In no time the party had started.

  Eddie, patrolling, would stop wistfully and lift his sunglasses to watch the dancing inside what used to be the old shed. It was full of mystery and enchantment tonight, but Eddie could never pause too long. Leopold would look up thoughtfully at the sky and Eddie knew that an unmerciful baying was about to begin, so the dog had to be hastened away to the river bank until the wish to howl at the stars had passed.

  Tommy Leonard told Dara that she looked beautiful.

  “That’s the only word for it,” he said, anxious that there should be no misunderstandings. “It’s not just pretty, or nice, it’s beautiful.”

  “Thank you Tommy, you look great yourself,” Dara said, pleased.

  “No, it’s not just a question of looking well or not looking well. This is a description of what you are. Beautiful.”

  Poor Tommy was bursting with eagerness to make it clear that this was no ordinary exchange of pleasantries. But Dara wasn’t really listening. She was looking at the door.

  Kerry O’Neill had sent a note saying that if he was able to make it he would very much like to attend the party.

  The note had been addressed to both of them.

  Grace had said that Kerry was very unpredictable. He had left school, had gotten six Honors in his Leaving Certificate, and he was about to start work in a hotel in Donegal. Father had thought the best way for Kerry to learn the business of running a hotel was to start in someone else’s. Nobody knew when he would be off.

  Grace hoped it wouldn’t be before the party, but with Kerry she said you never knew.

  Dara hadn’t wanted to keep asking. It looked so babyish.

  Maggie wondered if her dress clashed with her hair. Pink and polka dots would not have been her choice but this was a dress which had never fitted Kitty properly and was therefore pronounced almost new in the Daly family. Maggie had brought it to Miss Hayes over in the lodge and Miss Hayes had trimmed it with a red ribbon and assured Maggie that all girls with red in their hair wore this color now.

  Maggie danced with Liam White a lot at the party. Liam said that Maggie was easier to dance with than the others because she was smaller than normal girls and there wasn’t the same danger of being knocked down by her doing rock and roll. Maggie thought this was a mixed compliment, but at least it did mean she was being asked out into the center of the floor a lot.

  Jacinta White asked Tommy Leonard did he intend to dance with the hostess all night, because there was a good variety of other partners around.

  Michael realized that as host he must dance with everyone, but his head turned from time to time to watch Grace as she whirled with her golden curls tied in a huge black velvet bow, and her head thrown back laughing. Grace was so alive and so beautiful. He would love to have danced with her all night, but he knew he couldn’t. He went over to Maggie Daly, who looked very nice. Maggie was talking to Liam by the record player.

  “Will you dance?” he asked her.

  “Who, me? Are you sure?” Maggie looked startled.

  Michael was annoyed. He was only asking her to dance, for heaven’s sake, why did she have to look as if it were some huge thing and she wasn’t worthy of it?

  John looked in on the pretense that they might need more mineral water from the bar. He sneaked back and reported to Kate that all seemed to be under control.

  “Nobody smoking, no one with a bottle of brandy under the table, and they all have their clothes on,” he said.

  “My God what a terribly dull party!” Kate exclaimed jokingly, and the two of them smiled at each other in the bar. He touched her face suddenly and she held his hand to her cheek.

  Brian Doyle at the counter saw it and wondered if all that sort of thing had gone by the board for the Ryans. He presumed it had. You couldn’t get up on an unfortunate woman who had all those injuries, could you. It was a terrible thing to happen to them. But still, Brian brightened, they were in their forties after all, they’d probably given all that sort of thing up long ago. Brian was thirty-four with a girlfriend in the town who was going to pack her bags and move off to another town if he didn’t make a move one way or another. He put the idea out of his mind and ordered another pint.

  Carrie wanted to know should she serve the sausages and Mary said give them a bit more time yet.

  Mary kept a weather eye out for Leopold and Eddie. She could see why the twins had resisted having their brother around, but she wanted to make sure that Eddie didn’t tie Leopold to some far-off tree and forget him. The animal wasn’t used to being taken on such heavy walks with the lead.

  When Mary saw them pass again, she made signs and invited Eddie to join her in the kitchen.

  “What’s it about?” Eddie was suspicious.

  “I thought you and Leopold and I might have a sausage or two ourselves before the rush starts, what do you think?”

  Eddie thought it was great. Carrie served them all and brought a big bottle of tomato ketchup as well, which was more than the people outside at the party would have.

  Jimbo joined them for a few moments and gave Carrie’s ear a nuzzle.

  “Enough of that, Jimbo,” Mary said firmly.

  “It’s only a bit of affection,” Jimbo said.

  “It’s roguery and trickery and what’s more it’s unhygienic in a place where food’s being prepared,” Mary said.

  “All right.” Jimbo was good-natured.

  Eddie was given another sausage to reward him for his hard work patrolling.

  “What are you patrolling?” Jimbo asked.

  Eddie was at a loss. He didn’t rightly know.

  “What is it exactly?” he asked Mary.

  “Anyone knows you have to patrol at a function,” Mary said.

  “Will there be patrolling across the river when the hotel starts?” Jimbo asked.

  “Bound to be,” said Mary.

  “Maybe I should get in quick and apply for it.”

  Eddie smiled to himself. It was a real job, he had been afraid it might have been Dara and Michael making something up to keep him out of the way.

  Kerry was the last to arrive. Dara was the first to see him; she tried to stop herself running to the door, but she got there very speedily all the same.

  Kerry looked wonderful. He wore a pale blue shirt with dark blue stitching all over it, it was like the kind of thing a cowboy might wear. He carried two packages, one he left by the record player, one he gave straight to Dara.

  “Happy birthday, Princess,” he said.

  “Why do you call me that?” It was what Mary Donnelly called Grace when she was speaking disparagingly.

  “All beautiful girls are princesses on their birthdays, and you more than most.” He smiled at her warmly.

  Dara got that breathless feeling as if she had been running.

  “May I open it?”

  “If you like.”

  She was almost afraid to lose him by struggling with the wrapping paper too long, and yet it would be terrible to rip it off.

  She managed to open it, and he was still standing there. It was a beautiful hair clip with a big red rose attached. If you wore it, it would look as if there was a rose in your hair. Dara looked at it in delight.

  “I must put it on, I’ll go to a mirror and see what I’m doing.”

  “Don’t run away. Here, I’ll put it on for you.” He lifted the thick dark hair and slid the grip with its big silk rose into place. He had drawn the hair right back from her face on that one side; it gave her a faintly gyp
syish look.

  “Is it nice?” Dara asked eagerly.

  “It’s quite lovely,” Kerry said.

  At that moment the record player began to play a slower number, “Michelle.” Without asking her or breaking the mood, Kerry’s arms went straight around Dara and they were dancing.

  Dara looked around her and sighed with pure pleasure. The lights from the lanterns were twinkling on the white walls, the paper garlands hung artistically around, the tables looked festive with all the bottles of fizz and plates of snacks. Outside the night air was warm and the flowers in Mammy’s side garden looked romantic and like something in a calendar picture. She and Michael were fifteen, almost grown up, all their friends were here. But mainly Kerry O’Neill, who was eighteen and the most handsome man in Ireland, had come in the door, given her a magnificent rose for her hair, told her she looked beautiful, and was holding her in his arms as they danced to Paul McCartney. Dara hadn’t known it was possible to be so happy.

  Maggie Daly said to Michael that she thought this party was like something you’d dream about.

  Michael didn’t really listen, he was wondering if as host he could reasonably change the music. He wanted to put on something more lively, like the Rolling Stones. And it was particularly silly to have Grace dancing with that good-looking but basically thick fellow John Joe Conway. Grace was so nice to everyone, she shouldn’t be so polite to stupid John Joe Conway, letting him hold her close like that.

  The sausages were passed around, the trifle was eaten, every bit of it. The parents and a few people from the pub, plus Declan and Eddie in his dark glasses clutching Leopold for dear life, gathered for the birthday cake. Mary Donnelly, Carrie, Jimbo, and by chance Papers Flynn who was passing by, all gathered at the door for the blowing out of the candles. There were no speeches but a lot of clapping and cheering which made Leopold over-excited and Eddie had to clench his mouth closed for fear of rousing the neighborhood.

  Then the grown-ups, relieved that the party was going so well, retired, and someone had taken out the bulb of the only real light so now the place was lit entirely by the lanterns on the walls.

  It smelled of the end of the summer, of Nivea Cream and Blue Grass perfume, of cheese and onion potato chips, of sausages and of the September flowers in the garden.

  The music was almost all slow now. It was as if the energy for jumping around to the noisier tunes before supper was no longer there.

  Michael didn’t mind if there were girls he hadn’t danced with yet; they probably didn’t want to dance with him, they all seemed happy. He stood and talked to Grace or they moved out to dance. All the time she laughed and listened to him and told him things, and many times she said, “Michael, you are wonderful,” and he knew she meant it.

  Liam White danced a lot with Maggie.

  Tommy Leonard looked wistfully for an opportunity to dance with Dara again, but he never got one because Dara had never left Kerry O’Neill’s arms from the moment he had come into the room and given her the beautiful rose for her hair.

  “It’s a quarter to twelve. I suppose we should start making some noises,” Kate said.

  “You don’t know the whole principle of drinking-up time,” John said.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you scared me to death. Tell me they have no drink in there.”

  “No, I was speaking figuratively,” John said.

  “Don’t,” said Kate.

  “I meant we told them twelve, so just after twelve we go in making noises, that’s the way things are done.”

  “How right you are,” Kate said. She felt a yearning to hold John close to her tonight. And she knew he felt the same.

  She had always thought that people in wheelchairs didn’t feel like that anymore, that the feeling just sort of disappeared when so much else had gone.

  There were so many things she hadn’t known.

  “I hope this isn’t all very babyish for you,” Dara said to Kerry.

  “How do you mean? It’s lovely!” He looked at her fondly.

  “No, this party, lemonade, no real drink, no band, it must be a bit …”

  “I don’t want real drink, we’d never get a band as good as the Beatles to come to Mountfern so we have their records instead … What are you worried about?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “That’s good,” said Kerry, “because you’re very beautiful when you are not worried. I don’t want to see you frown again. Is that a deal?”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Tommy Leonard asked Jacinta White to dance.

  Jacinta was pleased.

  “It’s been very successful, I suppose,” Tommy said.

  “Yes, it’s terrific.” Jacinta liked Tommy a lot.

  “But the O’Neills took over a bit, didn’t they?”

  “Did they?” Jacinta was genuinely surprised.

  “Maybe they didn’t.” Tommy struggled to be fair. “I just thought they did, for a bit. Like as if they were the only ones that mattered.”

  John Ryan came in and collected the empty bottles rather noisily.

  “It can’t be time yet, Daddy,” Michael hissed at him.

  “No, not at all, only about ten past twelve. I was just clearing a few of these away.” John was pleasant.

  He noted that the light bulb was laid neatly beside the record player. He put it back in its socket and the place became suddenly very bright. John continued collecting the bottles as if he were unaware how the appearance of the place had changed.

  In ten minutes, without his having to call out any message or threat, the party ended.

  The youngsters of Mountfern walked home by River Road or up toward the main road or in some cases with their bicycles they headed off to the small farms around Mountfern.

  The river rippled and rustled in the dark, the moorhens and ducks clucked gently in their resting places as children’s feet swished by. The moonlight shone on the nearly completed buildings in Fernscourt, where a new Georgian mansion had risen from the ruins, and where the two great bedroom blocks swept away behind it looking like half-folded wings. For most of them it had been the first night like that they had ever known, and they were filled with thoughts of a future where there would be many more.

  The twins sat on the window seat and talked for ages about the party. They talked about how funny Liam was and rude without meaning to be, and how pretty Maggie had looked, and what a clown that big John Joe Conway was, and wasn’t Eddie a scream with the dark glasses, and how nice Carrie had been and wasn’t it great that Declan had been shy and hung back, and how Mam hadn’t come near them and how funny Dad was at the end.

  Dara didn’t tell Michael about the end of the party.

  Michael didn’t tell Dara about how much he loved Grace. Yes, love. That wasn’t too strong a word for it.

  Dara ran her tongue across her lips again and tried to remember Kerry’s kiss. It had been so soft.

  His mouth had pressed on hers gently at first, and then a little more firmly. That was the first time, that was when they were in the darkest corner of the room, where nobody would see.

  She had closed her eyes. She didn’t know why but it seemed to come naturally, and he had said again that she was beautiful, so it must have been a normal thing to do.

  Then when the party was over and they were all going through the side yard and filing out, he had pulled her back suddenly and behind that archway with the climbing rose, he had held her face between both his hands and kissed her again for a long long time.

  “Happy birthday lovely Dara,” he had said.

  During all the goodbyes, he had said he would see her soon. She stopped herself from asking when.

  The next day and the day after she stopped herself asking Grace had he gone away to Donegal. She knew he wouldn’t go without saying goodbye. Not after that kissing.

  Dara hugged herself and wanted to cry out to the night skies about it all. But she didn’t; she told nobody. Not Michael. Not Grace. Not Maggie.

/>   And certainly not Tommy Leonard, who had said he loved the party himself personally of course, but he would have thought that Dara might have found it a bit dull, what with only dancing with the same person all night.

  “No,” Dara had said airily. “Funny that. I didn’t find it dull at all.”

  Rachel was responsible for the entire design and decor of Fernscourt. She knew she would come to Ireland again, since this could not be done at long distance. For a while she had hoped she could cut Patrick and his hotel from her life totally. Then she would hand over her meticulous files to her successor, or to whatever firm of interior decorators Patrick could employ.

  But this was not to be.

  Too much of her life had been spent too deeply enmeshed. She was not going to leave before she saw his dream castle built and built right.

  Patrick would not allow himself to be convinced by the unscrupulous in any other field, but when it came to the design of this hotel he had several very blank spots. He had been going to build a phony castle with turrets and Disneyland looks because someone had suggested that this would be suitable for a conquering O’Neill. Rachel had been the one to insist that the original house be built again and the bedroom wings tucked away at an angle.

  He would have had it filled with shamrocks, shillelaghs and leprechauns if her watchful eye had not been through every stage with him. Now that the building was complete, and the decorating about to start, it was time for Rachel to return.

  She was stronger now, and harder. She was a more lonely woman than the Rachel who had left here eighteen months ago hoping every moment that he would beg her to stay. Now when she came back it would be with fewer illusions.

  And with fewer millstones around her neck.

  Like she knew she would not set foot in the Slieve Sunset.

  She asked Kate to put her mind to thinking about this, and within hours of getting the letter Kate was on the phone.

  “I’ve found you the perfect place,” she said, overjoyed that her great friend was coming back to Mountfern and coming to be beside her. It had taken a little persuasion. But she had found exactly the right place for Rachel to stay.