A Week in Winter(31)

Little by little the place took shape.

Their website was up and running, with pictures of the views from Stone House as well as full descriptions of what they could offer. They got many enquiries but as yet no definite bookings.

Orla set up a press release which she sent to every newspaper, magazine and radio programme. She offered a Winter Week at Stone House as a prize in several competitions, on the grounds that it would bring them publicity. She bought a big scrapbook and asked Miss Queenie to keep any cuttings that might result. She contacted airports and tourist offices, book clubs, birdwatching groups and sporting clubs; she set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

Chicky loved being able to access such a world from their little office in Stone House. They had perfected their menus and posted them online; now they had their daily routine, with the suppliers and deliveries worked out and timed to run smoothly. Gradually the definite bookings came in, and they were within sight of receiving their first visitors when Carmel gave birth to twins.

Miss Queenie told Orla that she had never been happier. There was so much happening in Stone House these days, and she was here at the centre of it all. The morning room was now officially called the Miss Sheedy Room. There were restored photographs from their childhood showing Beatrice and Jessica and Miss Queenie as girls. She knew everybody in Stoneybridge nowadays instead of only a very few. She had delicious meals and a warm house. Who could have guessed that life would get so much better as she grew older?

‘I worry about Chicky, though, she works so hard,’ Miss Queenie confided in Orla, shaking her head. ‘She’s still a young woman, well, to me she is, anyway. She gets a lot of admiring glances but she never thinks of looking at anyone as a possible husband.’

‘And what about me, Miss Queenie? Don’t you worry about me too?’

‘No, Orla, not even a little bit. You will work here with Chicky as you promised until your year is up then you’ll go off and conquer the world. It’s written all over you.’

Instead of being pleased with such a vote of confidence, Orla suddenly felt lonely. She didn’t want to go off and conquer the world. She wanted to stay here and see it through.

‘I’m in no hurry to go off from here, Miss Queenie,’ Orla heard herself say.

‘It’s dangerous to stay too long in Stoneybridge. We can’t marry the seagulls or the gannets, you know,’ Miss Queenie said.

‘But didn’t you say yourself that you were never happier than you are now?’

‘I made the best of things, and I was lucky. Very lucky,’ Miss Queenie said.

Next morning when Orla brought the old lady her tea, she knew from one glance at the bed that Miss Queenie had died in her sleep. Her hands were folded. Her face was calm. She looked twenty years younger, as if her arthritis and aches had gone away.

Orla had never seen anyone dead before. It wasn’t very frightening.

She carried the cup of tea to Chicky’s room.

Chicky was already awake. When she saw Orla she knew at once what had happened.

‘There can’t be a God. He wouldn’t let Queenie die before the place opened. It’s so unfair,’ Chicky wept.

‘You know, in a way it might be for the best,’ Orla said.

‘What can you mean, Orla? She was dying to be part of it.’

‘No. She was nervous. She asked me more than once whether she would sit down to dinner with the guests or not.’

‘But of course she would have.’

‘She was afraid she might be too old and feathery . . . Her words, not mine.’

‘How can you be so calm? Poor Queenie. Poor, dear Queenie. She had no life.’

Orla stretched out her hand. ‘Come in and see her, Chicky. Just look at her face. You’ll know she had a life, and you gave it to her.’

They walked into the room where Miss Queenie had slept for over eighty years. From back in the 1930s when Ireland was only ten years old as a state.

Gloria the cat came in too. She didn’t get up on the bed but looked respectfully from the door as if she knew that all was not well. They stood and looked at Miss Queenie’s face. Chicky leaned over and touched Miss Queenie’s cold hand.

‘We’ll make you proud, Queenie,’ she said, and they closed the door behind them and went to tell Rigger and Carmel and to call Dr Dai.

Stoneybridge said a big goodbye to Miss Queenie Sheedy. A great crowd gathered outside Stone House to walk behind the hearse as it drove her slowly to the church.

Father Johnson said that next Sunday would be the first time there would not be a Sheedy in this church for many decades. He said that Miss Sheedy had called in to him last week and asked if they could sing ‘Lord of the Dance’ at her funeral, whenever that was to be. Father Johnson had said that we would all have long gone to our heavenly reward by the time Miss Queenie herself was ready to go, but the Lord was mysterious and now she had gone to join her beloved sisters, leaving behind her a memory of a life well lived.

The congregation all sang ‘Lord of the Dance’. They blew their noses and wiped away a tear at the thought of Miss Queenie peering good-naturedly at them and their children for years, back as far as they could remember.

Rigger was one of the four who carried the small coffin to the graveyard. His face was grim as he remembered how the old lady had welcomed him to her home and been so excited about everything, from the walled garden to Stone Cottage to the drives around in his van and then the arrival of the twins.