2

ALTHOUGH IT WAS September, the morning sunshine was intense. And it spilled in through the window, on to the linen tablecloth and the cream porcelain china of the breakfast table in Hayden’s Hotel. It was a huge dining room sinking into a soft paisley-patterned wool carpet.

The whole thing was hushed and splendid. Like a spring morning. And the sunshine warmed Birdie’s shoulder blades, for which she was thankful to the most merciful Christ, since she had decided on a light-blue cotton dress that morning, in the excitement of waking up beside the Vet on the first day of the rest of their lives. In the yard outside, Alex showed her the new car. It was the Ford. Or maybe not. Maybe it was the white Austin station wagon.

That was it. He came in a Ford. Then he got rid of it before the wedding. Yes. Birdie cannot be sure about things like that.

But she remembers him opening the door. He had hidden the car at the rear of the hotel as a surprise for her. He was fussing like a magician all morning. Until the big event. The big trick in the car park.

‘You could go to Dublin and back in that,’ he asserted, ‘and you’d not have to worry about breaking down.’

Maybe it was the Ford? No. It was the white station wagon. That was the big rabbit in the hat, so to speak. And certainly it was a huge surprise for Birdie.

But not for Hughie Donoghue. He had slept in it for the few short hours that remained of the night after the night porter had locked the drinks cupboard and began mopping up the sawdust floor of the bar with a bucket of foul-smelling disinfectant.

It must have been the station wagon because Dattledo Donoghue was lying in the back of it. Stretched. Like a corpse in a white hearse. Birdie was standing back to admire the car and she held her hands to her cheeks, as she saw the girls do in films when the hero presents them with something wonderful. But then she let out a shriek of horror when she saw the corpse. Or rather the long, bony face of Hughie Donoghue staring out at her through the back window where he had been stretched all night underneath his black coat. He smiled at her a wounded little smile on the bottom half of his long face. And he said hello.

There was a pear tree growing up a stone wall on one side of the yard. Birdie never forgot that pear tree. It was flush with ripe little pears as small as plums and it gave Birdie something to do as Alex removed Hughie from the car and got him on his way. Or so she hoped. But she hoped in vain.

When the negotiations were over, Hughie had convinced Alex that Kerry was such an astonishing land of music that it would be a crime against art to leave him behind.