Jimmy struggled to look offended. “You cut me to the quick, sir. But I could use a quick bite, before the evening rush. I’ll leave you to your tales.” He extricated himself from the sprung seat of the chair, waved at his daughter, and headed out the door, whistling.
Billy was still watching her expectantly. There were a few other customers in the place, but Rose was handling them, so Maura sat in the chair Jimmy had vacated. “You’ve had a spot of trouble, I hear,” Billy began.
As far as Maura knew, the man never moved more than fifty feet from where they sat. Which trouble was he talking about, and who would have told him what? “You mean when I nearly ended up in the lough?”
“It’s always been a bad road, but I can remember when there were children aplenty running up and down it, and carts goin’ to the creamery at the bottom, by the water. You’ll have been by it, although it’s been closed for a while now. The old school’s just there to the left, where the lane meets the road.”
Maura wondered what the definition of “a while” was for Old Billy and whether it was measured in years or decades. Then she realized that the school he spoke of might have been the one her grandfather had attended, maybe even her father. “Tell me more about the school. How many students were there?”
“They kept the boys and the girls apart, back in those days…” And Billy was off and running, stopping only now and then to take a swallow of his stout. In truth he needed no push, now that he’d found a new and willing listener for his tales. Probably everyone who passed through Sullivan’s had heard them all before. Realizing it could be some time before she got back to work, Maura looked briefly at Rose, who winked at her. Maura winked back and settled into the sagging chair for the long haul.
Chapter 23
People began to drift in, in ones and twos, later in the afternoon, and Maura had to tear herself away from Billy’s storytelling session, with some regret—she had enjoyed listening to him more than she had expected. His recollection of local events was deep, though their breadth extended no more than ten miles from Leap. Still, Maura was sure he could tell her more about her own family, if she could get a word in and nudge him in the right direction. But she would have time for that, wouldn’t she? She wasn’t going anywhere soon. She was still getting used to that idea.
Still, it was nice to be in the company of other people—she was beginning to worry about going anywhere alone, with Brown Car Guy following her around. If he stepped up his threats…she didn’t know what she was going to do.
She was behind the bar taking the espresso machine apart to clean it when Johanna Burke came in, making a beeline for the bar. Maura recognized her and greeted her. “If you’re back for that coffee, you may have to wait a bit, as you can see.”
“Haven’t yeh got it goin’ yet?” Johanna asked, settling herself on a stool.
“Almost. It hasn’t been used much, so it’s mostly a question of cleaning the dust off. Oh, and we’ll have to get some ground coffee.”
“I got some,” Rose said. “I wasn’t sure what sort was needed, though, so I got what they said was the strongest. Will that do?” Rose reached under the counter and pulled out a bag of ground coffee and thrust it at Maura.
Maura read the label. “Should be fine.” She turned back to Johanna. “Well, Johanna, are you willing to be our guinea pig? Because I can’t make any promises about the results.”
Johanna grinned. “If that means I’d be the first to try it, fire away, dear. I’m pulling for you.”
Maura squared off against the machine. Had she plugged it in? Yes. Filled the water bin? Yes. Maura packed ground coffee into the thingy with the handle, tamped it down, then clamped it into place, sliding a cup under it. Rose and Johanna looked on intently, clearly enjoying watching Maura take charge of the machine—and anticipating the results?—and she gave them a brief smile. “Here we go.” And she pushed the button.
For a moment nothing happened, but then the machine began to make a noise between a hum and a hiss—and coffee began dribbling into the cup. Johanna and Rose clapped and whooped, attracting attention from the men in the bar, who gave them a look of bewildered disgust and then returned to whatever they’d been discussing. Maura focused intently on the stream of coffee, and when it finally slowed, then stopped, she turned and slid the cup across the counter to Johanna. “There you go. Unless you wanted a cappuccino, with steamed milk?”
Johanna waved a hand at her. “This is grand. You can fuss with cappa-whatsis later. Have you any sugar?”
Rose passed a bowl with sugar packets in it over to her. Johanna took three, ripped them open, and dumped the contents into the cup. Silently Maura offered her a spoon. Johanna stirred, then lifted the cup to her mouth and sipped. A smile bloomed on her face. “Perfect. Points to you, Maura. You may be seeing a lot of me, come afternoons. What’re you charging?”
Maura and Rose exchanged blank looks. “Since it’s the first cup, it’s on the house. Rose and I will have to work out what to charge.”
“Will I get a discount, if I buy a month’s worth, say?” Johanna asked.
“We’ll see,” Maura replied, feeling ridiculously pleased with herself. It was only a cup of machine-made coffee, and Johanna’s enthusiasm seemed greater than the cup deserved, but if having espresso available made people happy—and kept them coming back—Maura wasn’t going to argue.
“You want to try it?” Maura challenged Rose.
“Drinking it or making it? ’Cause I’m not much for strong coffee, but I’d like to know how it works.” She watched as Maura reversed the process, removing the coffee grounds and cleaning out the holder.
“Always make sure there’s water in the container here,” Maura told the girl as she worked. “I can show you the milk part after you’ve figured this out. Your father wouldn’t happen to still have the instructions, would he?”
“Nah, he got the machine from somebody he ran into somewhere, not a store. Maybe they were settling a debt or something.”
“Then we’ll just have to figure it out on our own, right?”
“That we will,” Rose replied. “I push this button here?”
Rose completed brewing the coffee, and Maura accepted it and clinked cups with Johanna. The coffee was good, and Maura was filled with a sudden sense of contentment. The pub was as clean as it had been in years, she’d gotten the coffee machine up and running, and she’d made a new customer happy. She’d even done her good deed for the day by passing on Denis Flaherty’s letter to the gardaí in Skibbereen.
After darkness had fallen, Jimmy breezed in again, flaunting his cast. “Ah, I see you’ve got my toy to work. Good on you! I could see the possibilities in it from the start.”
“You’re going for the female crowd, are you?” Maura asked. “Or do you intend to wean the men from their pint?”
“We’re covering all the bases, we are. Besides, it’s paid for and all.” He turned to check out the crowd, which to Maura’s eye looked larger than it had the previous night. “Ah, Seamus, there you are…” Jimmy headed toward a man in the corner. Maura and Rose exchanged a glance.
“Is he planning to do anything more than hang out with his friends?” Maura asked, nodding toward Jimmy.
“I’ve no clue. He usually comes and goes as he pleases. But with you here now we’ve got plenty of staffing, right? At least until the summer season.”
Maura pulled a couple of pints, wondering just what busy might look like in summer. She knew that the current nighttime crowd wasn’t exactly the norm, because of the murders, but no one should count on that to continue. She realized how ignorant she was about Irish regulations for pubs. Was it all right if people brought their children in? And she also considered the issue she had run into tending bar in Boston: did they have any liability if they sent someone out of here drunk and he caused an accident? She wondered if Jimmy would have answers to any of these questions; Mick seemed more likely to know.
Whoa, Maura—aren’t you getting a li
ttle overinvolved here? It wasn’t her problem if Rose was underage or if Jimmy was skimming from the register. If she was just helping out for a while, what did it matter to her what the rules were? She was in no hurry to leave, but she hadn’t decided how long she wanted to stay. She topped off the waiting pints and pushed them across the bar, collecting the money handed her. Then she turned to Rose.
“Rose, what do you want to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you see yourself here behind the bar, pouring drinks, forever?”
“I told you, I’ve done with school,” Rose protested. “It’s a decent enough living here. Da and me, we need the money, not that the pay’s good, but it’s something coming in.”
“Isn’t there anything else that interests you? Like living somewhere else, maybe in a bigger town, a city? Or aren’t there courses you could take, to learn some kind of skills?”
“What’re you getting at, Maura? I don’t have a lot of training, and jobs are hard to come by. Besides, who’d look after Da?”
Maura felt frustrated. She wanted more for Rose. She wanted Rose to want more. But, Maura, be honest with yourself: are you thinking about Rose or about your own life? Maybe Rose was happy doing what she was doing; and maybe it was Maura who was chafing at the narrowness of her life. Sure, she’d never figured out a so-called career path for herself, and none of her high school counselors had pushed her to try harder. She’d taken some classes on her own, after high school, just to fill in the afternoons during those stretches when she was working nights. But nothing in her had caught fire. And there was no boy or man past or present she’d ever met who she could imagine settling down with. She’d seen enough of her high school classmates make that mistake and end up divorced at twenty-two with a couple of little kids. Not for her.
So how was she so different from Rose? She’d had more options available, but she hadn’t done much with them. Instead, she’d usually found herself working in one bar or restaurant or another and coming home to Gran. They’d needed the money, just like Rose and Jimmy did. Funny thing: the bills kept coming, whether you were following your dream or just marking time.
Maura my girl, you’d better clean up your own act before you start telling Rose what to do.
What would happen to Rose and Jimmy, and even Mick, if the pub closed? Where would they go? And when would they know what was going to happen? Old Mick had been dead and buried for, what, two weeks now? She scanned the room again: everyone seemed comfortable and content. There was a low hum of conversation, the sound of the television over the bar blending in. Everything at Sullivan’s was probably as it had been for decades, yet it could disappear with a single phone call from a lawyer, once they’d found either a will or a next of kin.
Rose left to see to supper at home. Shortly after that Mick came in the front door, shutting it quickly to keep out the cool night air. Smoke from the peat fire swirled briefly through the room. Mick made his way through the small crowd, stopping to say something to Old Billy, greeting a few other patrons, exchanging words with Jimmy, who looked comfortably settled with some friends in a corner. Then he made his way to the bar and leaned against it, keeping an eye on the room.
“Evenin’, Maura. You’re looking somber. Was it visiting your grandfather that got you down?”
“No, or at least, not altogether. Why, is my expression scaring away customers?” She debated whether to tell Mick about her encounter with the Brown Car Guy again. One the one hand, it was her business and she should take care of it on her own; on the other hand, the guy might decide to come after her here at the pub, which would make it Mick’s business. “Look, Mick, I have to tell you…”
He turned his back on the customers to face her and cocked his head at her. “What? As Grannie would say, trouble shared is trouble halved.”
“I don’t think you want half of it.” She hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I saw the guy in the brown car again, the one who ran me off the road, up at the cemetery.”
“Did he try to harm you again?”
“No, but he told me to go home, more or less. Then he left. But I got part of his license plate, and I took it to the gardaí in Skibbereen. Not that I expect much to come of it.”
“They’ve a lot on their plates at the moment, what with that murder and the fellow in the bog. Did they offer you any hope of catching the man who’s been bothering you?”
“Not really. The whole thing is so stupid—what could I have done to set him off?”
“Who’s to say, but maybe I should be walking you home for a bit.”
“Oh, come on—it’s just across the street.” Maura wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but she had to admit that she was trying hard not to think about someone who might want to do her harm.. And she wasn’t about to play the helpless female part. She sighed.
“Penny?” Mick asked.
“What?”
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said.
“Oh, sorry, it’s just so different here from what I grew up with. Do you get the TV show Cheers here?”
“We have done, now and then. Why?”
“Well, in the theme song there’s a line about going to a place ‘where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.’ But most of the bars I’ve worked in around Boston weren’t like that.”
“And?”
“And this place is sort of like that, or at least a whole lot closer to it. Is it typical? Or is this some kind of never-never land?”
“I’d say it’s typical of its kind in a small town. Dublin, now, they cater to tourists, at least in the center, so maybe the cheer is false. But here? Going down the pub of an evening is tradition; it’s just a place for friends to get together, have a quick pint, and talk for a bit. You might have noticed there’s not much else social to do here.”
“I guess. Maybe I grew up around a big city, but what I did with my time was kind of like what Rose is doing now, except I didn’t know everybody who walked in the door.”
“Were you not happy there?”
“I never thought about it, really. I wasn’t college material, even if I could have afforded it, and then there was Gran. She was the only family I ever knew, and I didn’t want to leave her on her own.”
“Then it’s not so different, is it?”
“I guess not.” Maura wondered why she felt sorry for Rose, thinking she was trapped in a dead-end life. Much as she hated to admit it, she was in the same boat, and while she was maybe ten years older than Rose, she still didn’t think she had any answers, and clearly she had no idea what she was going to be doing in another week or month, much less a year. What would make her happy? Right now she didn’t know.
Chapter 24
Another good night for Sullivan’s, Maura thought as she walked out of the pub. Mick watched her leave but made no move to follow her. After almost a week, she didn’t feel like the new kid anymore. Actually she was pleased: it meant that she was doing her job well, doling out pints quickly and correctly, with no fuss. Part of the furniture. She was fine with that.
The night was misty, the air a bit raw. She darted across the wide street and crunched her way down the gravel drive to the back entrance to her room. The rear of the house, the side toward the harbor, was unlit, but her eyes had adjusted to the dark by the time she reached it. She had her key in her hand, ready, but when she stuck it into the lock on the glass doors, the door panel slid under her hand. She knew she had locked it when she’d left that morning; it was a habit drummed into her over many years. She slid it open fully and stepped into her room.
And stopped, senses alert. There was someone in the room. She couldn’t make out much, other than that he was male, dressed in dark clothing, and huddled in the farthest corner, his back against the door that led to the rest of the house. Her choices: back out and run like hell to…where? Scream her head off and hope the Keohanes upstairs woke up before the guy killed her? Neither seemed useful, so she decided to push back.
Odds were it was Brown Car Guy—again. “What do you want?” she demanded. “If it’s money, I don’t have any, or anything worth taking. And if you’re the jerk who’s been following me, I’ve told the police all about it, and they’re looking for you.”
The man didn’t answer, but he finally made his move, lunging straight at her. But she’d anticipated it, and instead of retreating backward as no doubt he had expected, she feinted to the side, ducking under the weapon he was swinging. Stick, pipe? It was too dark to tell, but whatever it was, Maura was sure it could do some damage if it connected.
He turned quickly, but Maura had jumped over the bed and down on the other side, nearer the door. Her defensive options hadn’t improved much: she could throw a blanket over him, slam him with a pillow…or there was the lamp, an inexpensive china thing. As the attacker came at her again, Maura grabbed up the lamp and walloped him on the side of the head with it. The flimsy lamp base made a satisfying crash, shards of china flying. Her attacker cursed, stumbling backward and fell out the glass door, which Maura had left open.
The noise had finally wakened the household, and Maura heard the thud of heavy feet above her. Outside she saw a bobbing light—a flashlight? The man on the ground clearly saw it too, and he leapt up and disappeared, running away from the house toward the lane that ran along the harbor. Thanks to his dark clothes, he disappeared quickly into the night, as the bearer of the flashlight came around the corner and peered into the room.
“Maura? You all right?”
“Sean?” Maura said incredulously. “What the hell are you doing here? Aren’t you going after him?”
Even as she spoke, she could hear the sound of a car starting up on the road above, its engine loud and rough.
“He’s gone,” Sean said. “Could we get some light here?”
Maura looked at the remains of the lamp in her hand and started to laugh. “I think I just killed the lamp. Come on in—there’s a switch by the door, at least.” Even as she moved toward the door to the hall, it flew open to show Tom Keohane, a heavy wrench in his hand, followed closely by his wife in a droopy robe. Ellen found the light switch quickly.
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