A Week in Winter(7)

Mrs Cassidy had never taken a holiday. This was ground-breaking.

‘I should go now while Queenie is alive, I suppose.’

‘You should have it up and running as soon as possible.’ Mrs Cassidy hated to let the grass grow beneath her feet.

‘How will I explain it all . . . to everybody?’

‘You know, people don’t have to explain things nearly as much as you think they do. Just say that you bought it with the money Walter left you. It’s only the truth, after all.’

‘How can it be the truth?’

‘It’s because of Walter you came here to New York. And because he left you you went and earned that money and saved it. In a way, he did leave it to you. I don’t see any lie there.’ And Mrs Cassidy put on the face that meant they would never speak of it again.

In the following weeks, Chicky transferred her savings to an Irish bank. There were endless negotiations with banks and lawyers. There were planning applications to be sorted, earth movers to be contacted, hotel regulations to be consulted, tax considerations to be made. She would never have believed how many aspects of it all there were to put in place before the announcement was made. She and Miss Queenie told nobody about their arrangement.

Eventually it all seemed ready.

‘I can’t put it off much longer,’ Chicky said to Mrs Cassidy as they cleared the table after supper.

‘It breaks my heart, but you should go tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Miss Queenie can’t wait much longer, and you have to tell your family some time. Do it before it’s leaked out to them. It will be better this way.’

‘But to get ready to go in one day? I mean, I have to pack and say my goodbyes . . .’

‘You could pack in twenty minutes. You have hardly any possessions. The men in this house aren’t great on big flowery goodbye speeches, any more than I am myself.’

‘I’m half cracked to do this, Mrs Cassidy.’

‘No, Chicky, you’d be half cracked if you didn’t do it. You were always great at taking an opportunity.’

‘Maybe I’d have been better if I hadn’t seized the opportunity of following Walter Starr.’ Chicky was rueful.

‘Oh yes? You’d have been promoted in the knitting factory. Married a mad farmer, have six children that you’d be trying to find jobs for. No, I think you make great judgements. You made a decision, contacted me for a job and that turned out all right for twenty years, didn’t it? You did fine by coming here to New York, and now you’re going back home to own the biggest house in the neighbourhood. I don’t see much wrong with that career path.’

‘I love you, Mrs Cassidy,’ Chicky said.

‘It’s just as well you’re going back to the Celtic mists and twilight if you’re going to start talking like that,’ Mrs Cassidy said, but her face was much softer than usual.

The Ryan family sat open-mouthed as she told them her plans.

Chicky coming home for good? Buying the Sheedy place? Setting up a hotel to be open summer and winter? The main reaction was total disbelief.

The only one to show pure delight in the idea was her brother Brian.

‘That will soften the O’Haras’ cough,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘They’ve been sniffing after that place for years. They want to knock it down and build six top-of-the-market homes up there.’

‘That was exactly what Miss Queenie didn’t want!’ Chicky agreed.

‘I’d love to be there when they find out,’ Brian said. He had never got over the fact that the O’Haras hadn’t thought him worthy of their daughter. She had married a man who had managed to lose a great deal of O’Hara money on the horses, Brian often noted with satisfaction.

Her mother couldn’t believe that Chicky was going to move in with Miss Queenie the very next day.

‘Well, I’ll need to be on the premises,’ Chicky explained. ‘And anyway, it’s no harm to have someone there to hand Miss Queenie a cup of tea every now and then.’

‘And a bowl of porridge or packet of biscuits wouldn’t go amiss either,’ Kathleen said. ‘Mikey saw her picking blackberries a while ago. She said they were free.’

‘Are you sure you own the place, Chicky?’ Her father was worried, as always. ‘You’re not just going in there as a maid, like Nuala was, but with a promise that she will leave it to you?’

Chicky patted them down, assured them it was hers.

Little by little they began to realise that it was actually going to happen. Every objection they brought up she had already thought of. Her years in New York had made her into a businesswoman. They had learned from the past not to underestimate Chicky. They would not make the same mistake a second time.

Her family had arranged for yet another Mass to be said for Walter, as Chicky hadn’t been at home for the first one they said. Chicky sat in the little church in Stoneybridge and wondered if there really was a God up there watching and listening.

It didn’t seem very likely.

But then everyone here appeared to think it was the case. The whole community joined in prayers for the repose of Walter Starr’s soul. Would he have laughed if he could have known this was happening? Would he have been shocked by the superstition of these people in an Irish seaside town where he had once had a holiday romance?