Tourists wanted to get out and take photos and videos, he said. And plenty would want to go diving. ‘If I grow the business properly I’ll be hiring out diving gear on the side. But the great thing would be to get a glass-bottomed boat. God, Bríd, you should see the Great Barrier Reef. I went on one of them out of Cairns and you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘Was that when you met Dekko?’
‘Yeah, we met in a bar and we got talking. God, you wouldn’t believe the coral they’ve got over there. And the turtles. They’ve got six of the world’s seven species.’
Once Dan started talking about the ocean, you could never shut him up. As he leaned forward, Bríd found herself focusing on his eyelashes. How come guys so often had long, curling black ones, while women were stuck with mascara? When Dan went swimming he emerged from the waves with his hair and lashes sleek as a seal’s back, while she was left struggling with tangles and so-called waterproof eye makeup.
‘You know what, though? There’s stuff here that beats Australia hollow. Maybe less spectacular but so cool.’ His eyes widened, like a child’s. ‘There’s a beach a mile or so round to the west with no way down from the cliffs to it. Just a little horseshoe shape, with sloping sand and flat rocks round the edges. You can only approach it by boat and that’s why the seals use it for breeding. I’m telling you, you should see the photos I took round there last year. There was one cow had a white pup – oftentimes the mother rejects an albino, but this guy was playing there on the sand with his brothers. And they’d no fear at all. As far as they were concerned, I was just passing by on the sea, like I might have been one of themselves. God, if I’d only had a really decent camera, I could have been winning prizes.’
His eyes focused on Bríd again, and he slugged back a mouthful of tea. ‘The thing is, though, that you’d want to leave them their privacy. I think that’s the core of what I want to do. Show people all the incredible stuff that’s here, but make them see that other species, and all the marine landscape, have to be given space to thrive.’
It was at times like this that Bríd feared she was actually losing her heart to him. Despite his wheeler-dealer airs, Dan wasn’t all about making money. He really cared about what he was trying to achieve. And, the way things had been, the odds had been stacked against him. It didn’t seem fair. She and Aideen had started off with money in the bank and number eight as an asset. So, hard as it was making payments on a loan, at least they’d been able to get one.
Compared to them, and to people like Jazz Turner, whose start-up company was financed by family money, Dan was facing a far dodgier future. And having messed up his first attempt at setting up a business, he hadn’t just felt humiliated, he’d been left with a hopeless credit rating. No wonder he was over the moon now, having found himself an investor. Bríd just hoped that Dekko hadn’t gone off and left him in the lurch.
19
As Conor came into the big room in the Old Convent Centre he could see several hairdos in front of him that had yet to face the weather. Clearly some of the old ones had stayed on to attend the meeting after a session in Cassie’s chair.
The day-care facility was warm and well-lit, the blinds were down, and someone had the tea urns heating in the kitchen. Even though the night was shaping up for a storm, there was a good crowd in the room, including a solid sprinkling of the town’s retailers. Timing the meeting for six fifteen had brought in plenty of people who, if they’d had a chance to go home first, probably wouldn’t have come out again.
The posters had said ‘FREE REFRESHMENTS’ in massive letters, too, and that always made a difference. And above that, printed in the largest font that Phil’s printer could cope with, was a line that read:
!!TIME TO GET CLUED-UP AND READY FOR FINFARRAN’S WINTER FEST!!
Ferdia was up at the top of the room, fiddling with a computer. Phil was dodging round beside him, trying to set up a shiny new projection screen. It was packed into a tubular case and came out in endless numbered bits that had to be screwed together. Conor could tell from Ferdia’s face that it wasn’t the one he’d have chosen if he’d been asked.
The meeting actually didn’t interest Conor. But the girls from number eight were coming so he’d tagged along, intending to go for a drink with Aideen afterwards. Dan, who must have been working on the same principle, had sloped in behind him and was leaning against the doorframe at the back.
Cassie arrived a few moments later, carrying a mug of coffee, and strolled casually up to a seat near the front. She’d obviously jumped the gun when it came to accessing the free refreshments, and you might have expected the rest of the crowd to look peeved. But, instead, they all seemed delighted to see her, and half the old fellows were falling over themselves to find her a place to sit down.
Phil tapped on the microphone till the chat in the room died away. She was wearing big glasses with black-and-white patterned frames, like an owl disguised as a zebra. Conor could see Miss Casey up at the front, with Brian Morton. He had a sudden, irreverent vision of most of the men in the room being there on a promise, and only dying for the meeting to start and be over so they could get home.
One way or the other, the chances were that, whatever Finfarran’s Winter Fest turned out to be, Phil would find it more exciting than the rest of them.
‘Now! Tá fáilte romhaibh go léir, a dhaoine uaisle, you’re all very welcome! And isn’t it great to see such a grand crowd on such a wet evening? But we’re here now, and I guarantee that what I have to say will make you feel that your journey was worth it. A couple of health and safety notices first – the emergency exits are at the back of the hall and here behind me, and the collection point, in case of fire, is outside, in front of the Garden Café.’
Conor tuned out and looked at the back of Aideen’s head up in front of him. Her red hair was twisted up into a scrunchie thing and her engagement ring glinted as she reached back and tucked away a curl or two that had escaped.
The other day he’d tried to have a talk with his brother, Joe, about the future. There was no sign of the yield from the farm getting better, and their dad’s depression was making things at home pretty tense. So Conor had thought that maybe they ought to sit down as a family and discuss things. But, according to Joe, that would be counterproductive. Paddy, their dad, would think that they’d given up on him. And Orla, their mam, would think they were rocking the boat. Conor had tried to explain that he didn’t want that. He’d thought that a bit of a discussion would help the lot of them get their heads round things. And he needed some idea of where his life was going, now that he was engaged. If the truth be told, it seemed to him that the best way forward might be for Joe to take over the farm altogether. Then he himself could concentrate on how to become a librarian, which, after all, he’d been thinking about for years. But he hadn’t said that to Joe.
The microphone gave a sudden shriek and Conor found himself focusing on Phil. She wiggled it ineffectually, looking severely at Ferdia as if the feedback was his fault. Ferdia ignored her.
As the crowd removed its hands from its ears, Phil regained her poise. ‘Now, what is a Winter Fest? I’m talking craft stalls, food stalls, competitions, maybe a carol concert, lots of local produce, and Festive Fun for the kids.’
Old Mrs Reily, who was getting rather deaf, turned to her daughter and asked loudly if the woman meant a fête. ‘Because if she does, we’ve come a long bloody way to be told about something we do every Christmas.’
Phil removed her zebra specs and addressed the room at large. ‘The exciting thing is that this provides us with a unique opportunity! If you’ll start the presentation there, Ferdia, we can all see what I mean.’
A Winter Fest, as Mrs Reily remarked loudly on several occasions during the PowerPoint presentation, was indeed a class of a Christmas fête. The big difference, apparently, was that, in this case, it was also a competition.
Phil was effusive. ‘It’s a joint initiative between local and national tourist authorities that’
s happening nationwide. They’ve based it on the Tidy Towns idea, different places all competing to be judged the very best.’ Without telling Ferdia to pause the presentation, she leapt in front of the screen and began to gesticulate with a large graphic of a holly wreath superimposed on her face. It was all about enhancing the Visitor Experience, she said, with a view to extending the season to introduce Year-round Tourist Reach. The screen shimmered and snowflakes began to drift onto the holly wreath. ‘I know that Carrick is planning to enter. And Ballyfin. And I said to myself that we’d want to be in there with them. No, hang on, what am I saying? Up ahead of them!’
A woman beside Conor put her hand up. With a resigned shrug, Ferdia froze the screen. Stepping out of her holly wreath, Phil looked at the woman, who asked if she meant there’d be tourists round all year long. ‘I mean what are they going to do? You can’t go shoving them out the door of your B and B in this weather.’
People around her nodded emphatically, and a man at the back said you were glad of the winter months to get things ready for next year. He had a rake of jobs to do himself, he said, not to mention a shopfront to paint, and a wife who wanted a break in the sun before they were back to coping with tourists again.
People at the front began turning round to respond, and for a moment it seemed to Conor that Phil was losing control. Actually she was way ahead of them. Changing tack sharply, she dropped the whole tourist bit and announced that they’d really just be enhancing a tradition that everyone loved. ‘Obviously the Christmas Fête is a Lissbeg institution. But this year, if we go for the Winter Fest option, I’m hoping to be in a position to offer the perfect venue here at the Old Convent Centre. I know Father McGlynn has always provided the church hall for the fête in the past. And I’m sure he’d be only too happy to do so again . . .’
There was a significant pause during which Conor saw that you had to hand it to her.
For years Lissbeg’s Christmas Fête had been dominated by the parish priest. No meeting could be held without his presence, and no decision made without his considered imprimatur, which was often withheld for weeks, during which nothing happened. Then, having finally agreed to something as trivial as the colour of the raffle tickets, he’d drop in the fact that the published date for the fête would have to be altered, or that the celebrity he’d promised to approach couldn’t come and open it.
On one occasion when something vital needed changing after the posters were printed, murder was nearly committed when he’d said that it didn’t matter at all because he’d make an announcement at Mass. Yet each year the exhausted committee members had to grit their teeth while he was presented with a vast Christmas cake and thanked profusely for all his work and his generous loan of the hall.
Conor could see people around him exchanging glances. The Old Convent Centre had this lovely big room and the kitchen with the tea urns behind it – and the garden outside, where you could put a Christmas tree, and maybe a stall or two if the weather was good. It was bang in the middle of Broad Street, too, and had better parking than you’d get at the church hall.
Phil resumed her glasses with an air of authority. ‘If we choose the Winter Fest option, I’m confident that the council will be happy for us to use the Edge of the World website to organise things effectively. And we’ve meeting rooms here at the centre, and access to computers, which will make everything easier.’
With her point made, she moved in for the clincher, flashing a smile at some of the crowd who rented studio space. ‘Plus it’ll be a great chance to showcase products, and maybe do a bit of networking. Obviously, we’d get plenty of press coverage if we happened to win the prize. Nothing wrong with that if you’re growing a start-up business!’
She glanced round the room again, nodding at Aideen and Bríd and taking in Nuala Harrington, who ran the florist in Sheep Street. ‘And a bit of press coverage never hurt an extant business either! Obviously, we’ll have charity stalls and things like that, as usual, but I know we can achieve a great sense of professionalism and style.’ Conor saw a couple of members of last year’s Christmas Fête committee stiffen. Even so, you could see the decision was made. Chatting up the crowd in the centre and the local shops had done the trick.
As for the old guard, Conor suspected that just getting out from under Father McGlynn’s thumb would have done it. But the idea of a newly decorated venue, complete with office support, was irresistible. As old Mrs Reily announced later at full volume over the teacups, getting away from the stink of the church hall’s paraffin stove nearly bettered ditching your man the priest.
20
Mary Casey felt like a right fool. Louisa had sat down to the lunch table saying that Jazz was planning to drop by at three. And Mary had assumed it was for coffee. Well, why wouldn’t she? It never struck her that the child would be coming by for anything else. So she’d slipped into her bedroom and changed out of her slippers. Then, since the shoes with the kitten heel didn’t work with the blouse she was wearing, she’d put on her new cashmere jumper and her double string of pearls. Pearls, she’d assured herself, weren’t over the top. You had to wear them regularly if you wanted to keep their lustre; if you left them stuck in a box they’d just dry out. But what the whole thing actually boiled down to was that Louisa had been wearing a lovely pair of ankle boots, and you wouldn’t want your granddaughter sneering at your old tapestry slippers.
And then it turned out that Jazz was only coming by to take Louisa off to some meeting. She’d breezed in on the stroke of three, looked at the bubbling percolator, and glanced up at the clock. ‘Gosh, I’m sorry, Nan, we won’t have time for coffee. I’ve got a chap booked in for twenty past.’
But, thanks be to God, Mary had had her wits about her. And, better still, she hadn’t yet opened the packet of Mikado biscuits. So she’d tossed her head and carried it off with an air. ‘Actually, you’re right, love, there isn’t time, is there? I hope it’s okay to cadge a lift to Lissbeg?’
She could see Louisa wondering where that had come from. But before anything more could be said, she’d swept across the kitchen, collecting her keys and her phone. It was by the grace of God that she’d remembered Pat Fitz had a class today in the library. She could whip in there and no one would know that she hadn’t planned to from the start.
Once she was settled into the back of the car, she’d opened her phone and shot off a text to Hanna:
TELL PAT 1 MORE 2DAY # U CAN TAKE ME HOME AFTER
Mind you, sitting staring at a screen for an hour was the last thing she wanted. It was a small price to pay, though, if it came to saving face.
When she pushed open the door to the library, they were all gathered round the computers. And not one man among them, which was something Mary couldn’t abide. A man always brought a bit of grace to an occasion and added a bit of a challenge, but what kind of socialising could a person do in a crowd of backbiting women?
Pat Fitz raised her head when she saw her in the doorway, and Mary’s eyes dared her to say a word. Hanna was sitting up at her desk but Mary paid her no attention. She crossed the room with her chin up and sat down in an empty place. A good few people turned round and smiled and said they were glad to see her. What she could see when she nodded back was that one half of them was ancient and the other was scruffily dressed.
And here was Pat now, handing out orders like Sister Benignus – you’d almost expect her to go the whole hog and give a vicious yank to your hair. The situation was ridiculous. Mind you, neither of them had been great at the lessons when they were at school, but the fact remained that Pat had always looked up to her. That was how it had been: Pat waiting for instructions and Mary leading the way. And things would be no different now if Pat hadn’t gone off and taught herself to use a computer. Sure, anyone could do that. Stabbing crossly at a key marked Alt Gr, Mary told herself the whole thing was farcical.
All the same, she had an hour to spare after the class before Hanna would close the library so, since she and Pat hadn’t c
hatted for a week, they took themselves off to the Garden Café. You had to order from the counter, so Pat went up while Mary claimed a table. It wasn’t the kind of weather for sitting out in the nuns’ garden. Looking through the steamy window, Mary watched a cloud of little birds fluttering round the statue in the fountain. Someone must have waded through the basin of shallow water and poured birdseed into the stone saint’s outstretched hands. There was a bitter wind throwing the little birds sideways and, as far as Mary could see, half the seed was going to get blown away. Fair dos to whatever eejit had gone and put it there, though. This was no day to be trying to find your food out in the cold.
She had a neat little bird feeder herself, back at the bungalow. Johnny Hennessy from next door had hung it by the kitchen window for her the summer after Tom died. ‘You’d get great company from birds,’ he’d said, which Mary thought was plain stupid. She’d got used to looking for the flutter of wings, though.
And this summer, when she and Louisa would be sitting outside having breakfast, the birds got so tame that some of them came wanting pieces of toast. You couldn’t have them messing on the table, of course, but if you threw a crust down for them they were cute enough to run for it. Though you’d have to sweep up afterwards for fear that you might bring rats.
Mary’s mouth tightened. The lovely relaxed breakfasts with Louisa seemed to be over. And not just because the summer was gone and you couldn’t go sitting on the patio. Ever since she’d started this business with Jazz, Louisa’s days had changed. She was supposed to be a sleeping partner – the money behind the scenes while Jazz got on. Instead she was in and out at all hours, making calls and driving off to meetings. No time at all for a proper chat.
The Mistletoe Matchmaker Page 10