That Summer at the Seahorse Hotel

by Adrienne Vaughan

  “Not at all, there’s a great big poster up at the hotel, outlining future facilities ‒ golf course, rifle range, what do they call it now? Country Pursuits centre, sure they’ll have to put it somewhere. Galty’s obvious but if they can’t buy Galty, they’ll go the other way, Jimmy Nugent must be nearing retirement and none of the family want to go into farming, he’d be the next choice.”

  “Oh,” Mia said, quietly.

  Leela looked at Mia. “You didn’t know?”

  “There’s evidence of backhanders regarding planning, corrupt officials, all that kind of thing.” Mia needed more of a reaction to her devastating news.

  Leela shrugged.

  “Same old, same old. It all comes out in the wash. Sure, Ross Power knows about all the planning shenanigans, Archie told me that, said there were no flies on that young fella. I’m sure he’ll deal with it his own way, in his own time, seems a principled type to me. He has enough to worry about, God help him.”

  “Do you mean the building itself? I believe there are structural problems.”

  “The whole town knows about that, sure half the population work there. No, I’m talking about Pearl. You know my sister, the teaching assistant up at the Mary Magdalene? She says that child’s desperate to go there, even went and bought herself the uniform, hasn’t taken it off since.”

  Mia felt dreadful; she eyed the brandy, maybe it would make her feel better.

  “I remember a little girl desperate to belong too. Begging not to be sent back to school in England,” Leela said.

  “I didn’t go and buy myself a uniform though, did I?”

  “No, but you went round talking in the broadest Rosshaven accent I ever heard and I’ve lived here all my life.” She squeezed Mia’s hand, pain flitting across her eyes as she remembered. “Are you going to get that?” The phone was ringing.

  Mia blinked the memories away as she hurried into the house. Leela was packing up behind her, the sky had turned black, storm clouds rolling in.

  “Is that Miss Flanagan?” A cultured English voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Caroline Partridge, Pearl’s nanny, speaking. Mr Power asked me to call. We were just wondering …” Mia could hear the tension in the woman’s voice. “Pearl’s not with you, is she?”

  “No.” Mia waited.

  “Have you seen her today?”

  “Is there something wrong?” Mia did not want to land Pearl in trouble, best to say as little as possible.

  “We can’t find her. We thought … hoped she was with you.”

  “I saw her earlier, had a suitcase with her. A pink one, on wheels.” Mia heard the intake of breath. “You’re scaring me now.” Mia’s heart started to race.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so worried, there’s been the most awful row. Pearl’s convinced her uncle’s here to take her back to the States, I think she overheard an argument and … and …”

  “What?” Mia snapped.

  “Ran away.”

  “Where’s Ross?” Mia demanded.

  “Gone to look for her, at the school, I think.”

  “I don’t think she’ll be there, term’s not started yet,” Mia told her. “Can you get hold of him?”

  “He took his mobile.”

  “Tell him to meet me at the jetty, if I know Pearl she’ll have gone to the island.”

  “But how would she get there?” Caroline was bemused.

  “She’ll do what she’s always done, pay someone to take her.” Mia replaced the receiver. Leela was standing behind her with the lifejackets.

  “Take these, only one person known to have walked on water, he’ll be giving you a hand though, you mark my words.” She had hardly finished her sentence before Mia was running down the steps towards the beach.

  The engine started first time. No sign of Ross. The tide was coming in. She had to go, she pushed the tender out. A screech of tyres, a door slammed. Ross was flying along the path by the summerhouse. He leapt from the steps, shrugging off his jacket as he landed on the sand. He jumped into the boat, rocking it violently, pulling off his tie he took hold of the tiller.

  “The island?”

  “Has to be,” she replied.

  “Mia, about earlier …”

  “Another time.” She zipped her life vest. “Let’s find Pearl.”

  “Ross pushed the throttle forward, they gathered pace. As they sped across the water, a strong south westerly cut across, trying to push them off course, Mia fixed on a small slice of shore still visible, the tide flooding in, half the island would be submerged soon enough.

  They dumped the boat on the sand, racing along the track, calling her name. Twilight shrink-wrapped around them, turning everything into featureless shapes. By now the wind was howling, whipping their voices away. Mia fumbled along the wall to the opening, pulling Ross in behind her, they stood in the courtyard straining their ears. The ruined buildings took the strength out of the wind, at least they could hear each other speak.

  “Let’s split up. I’ll do the church and the outbuildings,” Ross said.

  “I’ll go along the wall, she may be asleep in a ditch.” Mia tried to be upbeat. She handed Ross the torch. “Take it, the moon’s coming out.” She glanced up at the sliver of silver, willing it to burst into a huge glow.

  Mia could see the flashlight bouncing off the walls of the buildings as she rounded the perimeter wall. She met Ross at the entrance to the church. It had started to rain. He shook his head.

  “I just keep thinking about the caves.” His voice was flat with despair.

  “She won’t be there, she’s here. I know she is.” Mia was racking her brain. Why would Pearl come back, what was so exciting about the island, what had really captured her imagination? The treasure, of course, that was it.

  “The well, Ross, the well!” Mia shouted running across the courtyard, rain beating her back. She leaned over and yelled at the top of her voice. “Pearl, Pearl!”

  It echoed back at her. She turned her head to listen. Nothing. Ross went to the other side, his foot bashed against something, he turned the torch on it. The pink suitcase.

  “Her bag, it’s here.”

  “Pearl!” Mia tried again, even louder, leaning dangerously over the well but all she could hear was the wind and the rain.

  “I’m going in,” she said.

  “No way.” Ross was at her side. “I’ll go.”

  She pointed into the well. “You’re too big, it narrows after the steps, you’ll get stuck.”

  “What if you get stuck?”

  “I won’t. I’m a mermaid, remember?”

  In a flash she hoisted herself over the wall, lowering her body onto the ledge. Ross handed her the chain with the bucket attached.

  “Keep hold of this, it will guide you, tug to come up.” He released her hand.

  Once inside the well, the sound altered. No wind or rain, just the gentle echoing slosh of water. Mia sat on the steps, bumping down one at a time, the torch stuffed inside her life vest. She kept calling Pearl’s name, but the walls deadened her voice, stopped it going anywhere.

  Reaching the water, she flashed the torch bouncing light off the surface. The walls had a series of ledges; Mia was praying Pearl had managed to hold onto one of these to keep her head above water. At least the water in the well was a constant level, the depth would not change.

  Mia called out again, wiping her eyes to focus. She blinked, her eyes stung. She tasted the water. Salt. There was sea water in the well. She froze. That meant the depth would change, the tide was coming in. Panic rising, Mia roared out the little girl’s name, over and over.

  Did she see something? She looked again. Rather than narrowing as she thought, the well widened, seeming to go round a bend. Holding the torch aloft, Mia pushed off the step. Ross felt the chain slacken. He tugged, calling down to Mia. Nothing. He felt panic grip his chest, the wind had built to a gale and the storm railed around him. Desperate, he scanned the sky for the coastguard, Caroline should hav
e called them by now.

  Mia was right, there was a bend. She swam through the icy water, pushing against the tide with all her might. At the far end of the tunnel she could just make out a ledge and perched there, crouched and frozen with terror was Pearl. She was wearing a mermaid outfit, clutching a large black hat. Mia fixed the torch on her, Pearl’s eyes were glazed over, water lapping about her knees. Mia flashed the light at her face.

  “Pearl, it’s me, Mia!”

  The girl let out an ear-shattering scream and leapt into the water, splashing towards the light in a desperate frenzy of relief. Mia grabbed the little body, rigid with cold and fear.

  “Okay, arms around my neck. Tightly now, deep breaths, I’ve got you.”

  Ross had one leg over the entrance to the well when the chain rattled. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he spotted Mia leading Pearl up the steps, careful to keep hold of each other, using the chain as a guide rope. The first thing Pearl saw were his arms, reaching down as far as he could to clasp her hands and haul her out. Once Pearl was safe, he gripped Mia by the shoulders, pulling her up, out of the well and into the driving rain. He wrapped his arms round them both, letting out a low strangled, moan of relief. They held one another tightly for a long moment.

  Blades whirred overhead. They looked up, Mia thought the moon had come out at last. It was a massive helicopter searchlight, the coastguard had arrived just in time to rescue a couple of half-drowned mermaids and one rather battered ‘Superman’.

  STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

  The next morning Mia felt as if she had been hit by a train, even her eyelashes hurt and as she tried to open her eyes images of the vivid nightmare that was the day before began to resurface. Yet like her childhood dreams, the night of terror started to fade as morning seeped in and softly, slowly, the comfort of knowing she was home in Galty House, soothed her fears away. It had always been the same.

  Leela appeared with tea, toast and painkillers, handing Mia a mug. “I’ll run you a bath, you’ll need salts for those wounds.”

  Mia shook her head to clear it. Ouch, that was sore.

  “Any news?”

  “They kept Pearl in overnight, just for observation. Ross was here earlier, I told him you were still asleep, he’ll come back later.”

  “Oh.”

  Mia was trying to remember how she had left it with Ross. She remembered making a scene at the hotel. Ross had her thrown out. Pearl in the car park, then Leela in the garden, a phone call, Pearl gone.

  Gingerly she climbed out of bed. Her feet were black and blue.

  “How did I get back?”

  “An ambulance dropped you off after the hospital in Wexford patched you up.” Leela fed her the pills. “Scared me to death, I stood on the balcony for hours, I could see a light over on the island, then the coastguard. Sure, I’d no idea what was going on.” She ran her hand over her eyes. “Bloody island, death trap that place is.”

  Mia touched Leela’s shoulder. “I’m fine, honestly.” The cat jumped onto the bed, giving Mia a baleful look. “Honestly,” she told the cat.

  “You’ll feel a lot better after a nice soak.” Leela passed the robe from the back of the door. “Ross gave me this, he said, ‘to add to the collection’ whatever that means?”

  Leela handed over a bulky envelope. Mia opened it; more keys, a small bunch, there was something else; a turquoise seahorse, a little fob with a pearl for its eye.

  “Ross is very keen on security,” Mia said. “Thinks I should keep everything locked up.”

  Leela gave a toss of her head. “Think you do that anyway.”

  Archie’s roll top bath was filled with creamy suds, Mia let go of the sides to submerge gratefully beneath the silky surface. Up to her ears in bubbles, she admired the extravagant chandelier above her. She looked again, the chandelier was at an angle; there was a deep crack in the ceiling running towards the wall. She sat up, if it broke free and landed in the bath someone could be seriously … dead. She leapt out of the bath, pulling the plug.

  Leela was in the kitchen filleting fish. “That wasn’t much of a soak,” she said, looking Mia up and down, her hair still wet.

  “Noticed anything strange around here?” Mia asked.

  Leela laughed. “This place has always been strange.” She carried bones to the bin.

  “I mean cracks and splits, as if it’s moving?”

  Leela thought for a minute.

  “The summerhouse, a few panes of glass broken alright, but that’s just the wind, whips up stones.” She fed the cat silvery fish skin.

  “And the beach, notice anything there? Has it changed at all?”

  Leela raised her eyebrows. Mia must have taken a blow to the head.

  “I never go on the beach, you know that. Hate fecking sand.”

  Mia was through the door in a moment.

  “Where are you going now?” Leela called.

  Mia stood at the bottom of the steps thinking, looking out to sea for an answer. Her leg ached, the leg she had hurt when she fell through the hole in the sand, the sand that stretched for miles, smooth and safe.

  Something else was bugging her. The tide was weird. When she and Ross had been in the caves, the water seemed to run in different directions. Something had altered the coast.

  She looked along the sweep of bay leading to the marina and the Harbour Spa Hotel, men in high visibility jackets were out on the flats, putting up signs, barriers. It was August, the height of the season. Something was wrong, very wrong indeed.

  Ross was in deep discussion with one of the men when she arrived. He gave a wave and strode towards her.

  “I called earlier, Leela said you were sleeping, rough night, huh?” He stood towering over her yet looked shrunken somehow. “I came to say thank you, without you … I …”

  “We did what we had to do,” she said. “But having me escorted out of the hotel, now that was …”

  “Hang on, I had no choice. I was on the verge of telling them I knew what was going on, you bursting in like that … could have ruined everything!”

  “I realise that now. Leela told me you and Archie knew all about the bribes, the permission for Galty House to be demolished, planning for the golf course already signed and sealed.”

  “And paid for!” Ross said. “Thank goodness Archie had all the evidence to back me up.” Taking her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “I’m sorry I had to throw you out of the hotel but I was about to confront those responsible, I couldn’t have you mess things up, forewarn them so they could get their stories straight, come up with alibis, excuses.”

  “I’m sorry too.” She meant it. “But what’s going to happen now?”

  “About the golf course? All on hold at the moment. I’ve bigger, more pressing problems needing my full and undivided attention.” He indicated the beach.

  “Looks serious.”

  “I got to thinking, these structural problems at the hotel, the weird undercurrent in the caves, sea water in the well.” He pointed out to sea. “See that boat out there? A team of divers. I need to know what’s going on, we all do.”

  “Are you closing the hotel?”

  “It’s closed. Some kids were playing on the beach yesterday, one of them got stuck in a hole which seemed to appear overnight.” Ross pushed his hair back. “I’ve shipped all the guests out, nearly everywhere is full but we managed it.”

  “Oh, Ross.” She could see the anguish in his eyes. “What about you and Pearl?”

  “I’ll have to send her home. This is going to be a long job, she needs to be settled. I don’t want her childhood screwed too.”

  “Hey.” She gave him a half-smile. “Can’t be as bad as all that, surely?”

  He looked back out to sea.

  “It was a dream, Mia, maybe it should have stayed a dream.”

  They walked on in silence. Mia stopped.

  “I have an absolutely brilliant idea!”

  Ross scowled at her but she was getting used to that.
r />   “Why don’t you and Pearl come and stay at Galty? Leela and I are rattling around the place. You can manage the project from there and Pearl can go to Mary Magdalene, just as I did.”

  “Won’t that look a bit odd? You know how people love to talk.”

  “Let them, they’ve always talked about the scandalous goings on up at The Seahorse Hotel. And anyway, I’m just being neighbourly.” She was serious.

  “Hey, that’s really kind but no way. I mean you’re not even sure you’re staying yet.” He gave her a look. “Are you staying?”

  She pulled a face. “Nowhere else to go. Besides I’ve started making lists and schedules.” She gave him a broad grin.

  He laughed. “It’s that serious then?”

  “You betcha!” she said, trying out her awful American accent.

  Later that evening, after putting a very excited Pearl to bed, Mia and Ross were sitting at the kitchen table, replete from Leela’s delicious fish pie and exhausted by recent events.

  “A nightcap,” Mia offered; she longed for sleep but Ross was a guest.

  “If you’re having one?”

  She fetched the decanter filled with Archie’s favourite cognac, it was only then she remembered the wine.

  “By the way, the keys opened the safe,” she said as she poured. “The ones Sister Agnes gave me, locked doors too, very helpful.”

  “Did you look in the safe?” Ross was curious.

  Mia took a sip of the smooth, warming drink, at last some of the anxiety of the past few days beginning to ease. “Yep, full of wine, seemed Archie kept the best stuff under lock and key.”

  “Wise man,” Ross confirmed. “A few of his acquaintances are proving to be less than honest.”

  “Anyone I know?” As if she could not guess.

  “Eamon Degan, lawyer and Dominic Driscoll, my erstwhile driver. Looks like Eamon banked a large sum of money as a deposit on the sale of this place.”

  “How did he manage that?” Mia was intrigued. “Sounds ambitious even for Eamon.”

  “Forged a copy of Archie’s will, sent it to my uncle Christie. States he and Bernice inherit the estate, fifty-fifty split. He asked for a deposit to secure the land for the hotel, Christie had half a million dollars transferred to his account.”