The Hollow Heart Part 30

The weeks following Oonagh's death were a blur. Padar was, one minute, fully compos mentis, the next, a gibbering wreck. Miss MacReady appeared staunch with sobriety throughout the evenings yet, could be found slumped in a stupor in the sorting room at the Post Office at half eight in the morning. Marianne was wasting away to nothing, alternating between helping at Maguire's and the Post Office and trying to keep Bridget fed, washed and watered in between.

It was Father Gregory who finally put his foot down. He called a meeting of the 'Bridge Too Far' Committee, a.s.sembling the grief-stricken adults, in the hope that once gathered, they could discuss how to restore some sense of order into the life of the child, who was suffering due to their pre-occupation with maintaining some semblance of normality. Once they had finished deliberating the slowness of the construction process, the popularity of the new marina and the latest funding report, the Priest called them to order and put the upbringing of young Bridget Quinn under 'Any Other Business'.

Padar was shocked. "We're grand, Father."

"I'm not saying you're not, Padar. But the child needs a routine. Sure you're run ragged with the pub and the holiday lets. It's time to sort something out."

"Sure I'm a great help to them, aren't I, Padar?" Miss MacReady interjected, indignant at the Priest's suggestion the child was being neglected. Padar and Marianne murmured in agreement. The Priest banged the table.

"To put it bluntly, I think she should go and live with her G.o.dmother for at least part of the week, if she'll have her. Only two minutes from the pub, Marianne could set up a proper routine for her, while Padar gets on with running the business to provide for them. It's what she needs. It's what we all need."

It was Marianne's turn to be surprised. She knew the situation was less than perfect and, if she was honest, could not continue indefinitely, but she had not considered for a moment, that she could be the person to remedy the situation. Yet thinking about it and putting the child first, she could see what Father Gregory was suggesting made perfect sense, at least for a while.

Padar, who was struggling to keep the business going on his own, initially bridled at the idea of the arrangement and had to be a.s.sured his relationship with his daughter would not suffer. Indeed, it could only improve. He saw so little of her at the moment. Father Gregory slammed his clipboard on the table.

"I'll leave it with you then." He left without finishing his drink.

Miss MacReady remained indignant, ramming Oonagh's curly blonde wig a little further back on her head. Marianne could not help wishing she would soon relinquish this particular memorial.

"The Priest has a point, Padar. She's growing up fast; she needs stability in her life. We all do," Marianne offered softly.

Padar said he would think about it, but when Bridget crawled into the doorway in a soiled romper suit with chocolate stains all over her face, he just slumped in his seat.

"I'll take her," Marianne said, and swept the little one and Monty back to Weathervane for a warm bath, supper and a bedtime story.

Two days later, a desperately exhausted Padar asked to see her. They came to an arrangement. Bridget would live with Marianne at Weathervane during the week, ensuring they all ate together at least once a day, before Padar became embroiled in the business of the bar. They would alternate between Weathervane during the week and Maguire's at the weekend, when Padar and Marianne would be at the pub catering for the weekend trade anyway.

They agreed to give the arrangement a three-month trial. All parties were satisfied, even Miss MacReady who was to act as on-call babysitter, giving both Padar and Marianne a break when required.

It was on a Thursday night, the week before Halloween, that Miss MacReady stepped into the breach to give them both a night off. It was over two months since Oonagh's death.

Ryan had been gone for almost as long, finishing the promotional tour which seemed to be taking him the length and breadth of the planet. He had contacted Marianne on numerous occasions, left phone messages and sent emails but she had forced herself not to respond, telling herself she was far too busy to stress unnecessarily about Ryan and his schedule. If he could compartmentalise his feelings, then so could she. She had other priorities at the moment. Plenty of busyness to fill her hollow heart, Miss MacReady would no doubt agree.

"Marie, I wondered..." Padar was fumbling at the till, straightening the Worcestershire sauce. "Would you come out with me for a bite of supper? There's a new place down at the Marina, a bit of compet.i.tion. Will we check it out?"

"We would, of course." She smiled at his awkwardness. "I'll be ready in a jiffy, beep the horn and I'll come out to you."

"Not like Oonagh then, she'd take an age to get ready."

"She did. But didn't she always look gorgeous."

He busied himself at the optics. Marianne swung out through the side entrance, missing Miss MacReady arriving to collect Bridget, waving a copy of the celebrity magazine, The Biz.

Padar rolled his eyes to heaven.

"More of the same, is it?"

"Worse. It's a scandal. Pictures of you all on the yacht, and then a write-up, saying Oonagh disappeared off the boat, and could there have been an orgy? And was there foul play? No name attached to it though, but they're calling it an exclusive, would you believe?"

"Dear G.o.d." Padar slammed the till shut. "Will they not let the dead rest in peace?"

"Not that lot." Sean slid onto his usual bar stool. "Sure that's dancing with the devil, courting favour with that shower." He glowered at Miss MacReady as she took Bridget and Monty away with her for the evening, two of Padar's cousins arriving to take over the bar, as she left.

He sat stony silent over his fish pie.

"Not to your liking?" Marianne broke his reverie.

"Have you seen the latest?"

"I've been warned about it. I'd just love to know where they get the pictures from. Ever since myself and Ryan have been coming here, someone has been taking pictures and sending them to the press. It's someone we know, but who?"

Padar shrugged.

"Is it that Paul Osborne fella dishing the dirt again?"

"No, Paul's moved on, working for an independent TV company in the Gambia, I heard, making a programme about the local people and their struggle to survive." Marianne was thoughtful. " I've always wondered who the traitor is. It's a small island. It must be someone very close to us."

Padar grunted, poking his fork in the pie. Marianne continued, "Sean Grogan always seems to have money for things like satellite TV and the latest mobile phone, I've never known him sell any livestock, so where does all that come from, I wonder?"

Padar shrugged again.

"Why bring Oonagh into it? Why make up stuff like that?" he said, eyes searching her face.

"It's what they do, Padar. They're very clever you know, always run it past their legal department first. None of you get it. Oonagh was the worst, the most naive for all her a.s.sumed sophistication. It's only about circulation figures, not like the good old days when a decent journalist was highly principled, a campaigner for justice, righting wrongs, exposing evil, fighting good causes."

"Were you one of them?"

"I'd like to think so. Chequebook journalism is what it is. Cheap and nasty. There's enough that's cheap and nasty in the world."

Padar took a large slurp of his drink.

"Do you think he'll come back?" he asked.

"Who?"

"Ah, you know full well who!"

"Ryan? Don't know. We didn't part on the best of terms. The longer he's away the more he becomes engrained in another way of life, another set of values. I don't know."

"Would you have him back?"

"That's a very personal question, Padar?"

"Would you though?"

"Only on a permanent basis, all or nothing, and that's not going to happen, so I guess it's nothing." She knocked back her wine.

"Sorry." Padar looked baleful.

"Me too."

They ate the rest of their now-cold food in silence.

News that the merchant banker in England had put the Georgian mansion on the market, disturbed Marianne for some reason. It had been refurbished to a very high standard prior to her arrival on the island but she had never even seen its absentee owners, who had only once sent an entourage to air the place ahead of the vagary of celebrities and politicians booked to stay during the 'Bridge Too Far' weekend.

Searching out Father Gregory, she found herself in one of his Confessionals.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" He smiled through the grille.

"Funny, that's not the Act of Contrition I remember."

"You've never struck me as particularly contrite."

"Ouch!"

"I meant it as a compliment. You always seem pretty comfortable in your own skin. What's up?"

She explained that the former doctor's surgery was on the market and a bit of an idea was germinating in her brain.

"More fundraising, Marie. I think we're all a bit battle-weary on that front, don't you?"

"I have a benefactor in mind but the most important thing would be reclaiming the house for the island, putting it back to good work. What do you think?"

"They always say there's none as evangelical as a convert. That must go for island converts too. When did the 'we' come into it?"

"Gregory, you've too much about you just to go round hunting, shooting, fishing and throwing Holy Water at people."

He laughed, blessed her in Latin, and closed his side of the grille.

"No penance, then?" she shouted through the shutter.

"Your projects are your penance," he shouted back.

Miss MacReady was enthralled. She sat on a bar stool, legs crossed in fishnet tights, red stilettos on her feet, horn-rimmed spectacles on the end of her nose as she poured over the architectural drawings.

"It doesn't need a lot doing to it," Marianne explained, "It was beautifully restored and here, you can see this would make a playroom; this could be a club room for the older children."

"With computers, DVDs, games consoles and the like," Miss MacReady sipped her Singapore Sling; she did so like to get down with the kids. "But who'd run it?"

"A board of Governors, like a school, with someone qualified doing the day-to-day stuff."

"Someone like Sinead." Father Gregory made a note.

"I've already mooted the idea. She seemed quite interested, said she might be looking for a new challenge." Marianne folded the plans away. Miss MacReady nodded, she had heard Sinead and Phileas were going through another bad patch. Sinead was thinking of moving back to Cork. Island life was not proving to be the idyll she had hoped.

The ubiquitous Sean pulled his coat off the back of his stool.

"Great! A shower of rag-a.r.s.es down from Dublin for the summer to vandalise and rob us. Great plan. Yet another outsider sticking her nose in and knowing what's best for us, and all she does is bring scandal and disgrace on the place."

"Hey now." Father Gregory stopped him in his tracks. Sean pushed past him.

"Go to h.e.l.l, Father. Sure we probably all will."

The priest smiled at Marianne.

"Bound to be a winner then if Sean's against it. Hasn't that always been the case?" Miss MacReady agreed wholeheartedly, volunteering to sound Sinead out at the earliest opportunity.

Not two days later, the three women were examining the plans over the kitchen table in Weathervane. Sinead was all for the project and loved the ideas for the house, which they discovered was called Ophiuchus.

"I've researched the name," exclaimed Miss MacReady, who was wildly enthusiastic about the whole thing. "It's the thirteenth constellation in the solar system. The ancient astronomers called it 'the sign of the wounded healer'. Most appropriate for its new lease of life."

Marianne's original concept was for the house to be turned into a summer retreat for underprivileged children, a special holiday home for kids who did not have holidays; the sort of kids where each day merged into the next because of family circ.u.mstances. Sinead took it to the next stage, suggesting the project be specifically for those children who were carers, looking after sick or elderly family members, taking care of the disabled or terminally ill. Everyone considered this an excellent idea, as Marianne set to work pulling together the plan for the purchase of the property, whilst setting the publicity machine in motion.

"I'm pretty well-known these days," she told her contact at the radio station. "Might as well put some of this infamy to good use." The radio interview which followed gave the new campaign a kick-start.

To buy the property quickly and get the project moving, Marianne invested a generous slice of her own funds. When she told Padar she wanted to call it the Oonagh Quinn Foundation, he begrudgingly agreed, handing over a donation following the sale of the yacht he could no longer bring himself to board, let alone sail.

"You're not keen on the children's project are you, Padar?" she asked as he cleared away the dishes following one of their regular weekend meals together in the pub. Bridget slumbered on the sofa with one arm flung across Monty's curled up frame.

"Not really. You've enough to be doing." He nodded towards the little one. "And I'm of the same opinion as Sean. I don't want a shower of roughnecks from the towns here. They'd be a bad influence."

Marianne was disappointed.

"It shouldn't be like that, and Bridget is a very lucky little girl, she has you and all of us who love her. It would do her good to mix with kids less fortunate."

"You mean, put her own situation into perspective."

"In a way." She stood to help.

He put the dishcloth down and was standing beside her, very close. He took her by the shoulders. She could feel his breath, hot on her cheek.

"Padar?"

His eyes were boring into her face, full of longing and desire. He pressed himself up against her. She felt a blush rise from her chest and then a flutter of fear.

"Oh, Marie, say you'll have me. I'm dying for you. We can be a family, that's all we need."

He tried to kiss her, gripping her shoulders tightly. She pushed him away.

"Padar, stop. Stop it!"

Instantly, Monty was at his heels, barking and snarling furiously. Marianne struggled to break free. Monty, now frantic, leapt up and nipped Padar on the wrist. He released her immediately and took a step back, confused. Then he seemed to snap out of it.

"Oh G.o.d, Marie, I'm sorry, so sorry." Fl.u.s.tered, he fled the kitchen, dishes abandoned. Shocked, Marianne stood fixed to the spot.

Much later, putting Bridget to bed in her cot adjacent the boudoir the infant had shared with her mother, Marianne could hear Padar weeping softly. She pushed the door ajar. He was standing in a corner, facing the wall, his head in his hands. The room was full of boxes, bearing the logos and slogans of vintners and brewers. The boxes were packed to bursting with Oonagh's possessions, clothes, shoes, handbags, all her worldly belongings. He turned when he heard her at the door, eyes wild with despair.

"I'd have given you a hand with all of this," Marianne said.