The Miracle Man Read online

  Mrs Megarrity was halfway to the kitchen when Margaret Garrison’s voice boomed out.

  “What – is this?”

  The squeaking of the trolley stopped abruptly. The Winter Cook turned on her heel, her eyes glaring.

  “That,” she said, with the authority of an official declaration, “is the best of mutton soup.”

  Mr Pointerly gave a muffled cough, his spoon clinking against his plate.

  “Mutton – soup?” Margaret Garrison said, her face contorting. “Who ever heard of mutton soup? It’s disgusting.”

  Cissy, who had been craning over her bowl, spoon gently parting the rapidly-forming crust of yellow fat, gave a little shriek, dropped her spoon with a splash and squeaked, “There’s a piece of wool in my soup! A fleece!”

  “Jesus save us!” From the trolley Mrs Megarrity came stamping across to the table and peered into Cissy’s bowl. “What is it, for God’s sake? I never met as fussy people in my life. Holy God, if this was in our house, they’d have this lot cleared and the hand ate off ye as well. Where is it?” she demanded of Cissy who had one hand clamped over her mouth. She jabbed a finger at the bowl. With practised ease Mrs Megarrity’s grubby finger hooked out the half dozen strands of curly wool. “Ah, sure it’s only a bit of oul’ wool. Clean meat never fattened a pig,” she said, and with a deft flick of her hand fired it away behind her. Mr Pointerly, who had been straining for a sight of Cissy’s bowl, as though expecting to see nothing less than a crocodile hauled from its grey depths, was caught in the eye by the projectile, dropped his spoon and sent half the contents of his bowl down the front of his trousers. At his frightened yelp, Mrs Megarrity turned and came towards him as he leapt to his feet. “God Almighty, what’re ye doin’ to yerself now, Mr Pointerly? You’re a terrible man for accidents.” He stood with his hands in the air, steam gently rising from the front of his trousers. “Here, let me get that.” So saying, the Winter Cook took a tea towel from her apron strings and began to rub vigorously at Mr Pointerly’s crotch.

  “Please – Mrs Megarrity – please – stop!”

  “Now now, Mr Pointerly, don’t be getting yourself into a sweat. I’m a married woman and a former nursing assistant. If I’d a pound for every one of them I’ve handled, I’d be wearing fur knickers.” She gave a final sweep with the cloth, making Mr Pointerly flinch. “There now,” she said with a wink, “that’ll put a bit of colour back in your cheeks.”

  Wide-eyed, the Misses Garrison had sat watching Mrs Megarrity. As the Winter Cook returned to her trolley, Margaret regained her composure and demanded of her,

  “What, might I ask, is for the main course?”

  “Well, boiled mutton, what else! Waste not, want not.”

  “But – I don’t like boiled mutton!” Margaret Garrison said with a stamp of her foot, her voice leaping two octaves in perfect parody of a spoilt child. The Winter Cook’s face took on a savage look.

  “It’d be a fine thing if we only got what we wanted in this life, so it would. Most’ve us’ve just got to take what we can get and lump it. The food money I get from him upstairs wouldn’t keep a cat in fish heads. Mutton it is and mutton ye’ll get!” She grasped the handles of her trolley, bent low behind it and began to push. “And I’ll thank ye to be quick about it too,” she threw over her shoulder. “I’ve still got them toilets to muck out before I finish and by the state of that one at the back, there must’ve been an acrobat in it.” And, mumbling to herself, she squeaked her way into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her. Margaret Garrison gave a long, shuddering whimper, her sister, hands clasped before her as if in prayer, stared into the murky depths of her bowl, while Mr Pointerly sat slumped in his chair and vaguely wondered why he should have been so naive as to think that this evening’s meal might just have been better than any of the others.

  chapter two

  Mrs Megarrity came out of the back door of the Glens Hotel kitchen, glanced around the cluttered yard and up at the rear windows of the hotel before giving a low whistle. After a few moments the bushes at the rear of the yard parted and a boy of about ten poked his head out. The Winter Cook silently beckoned to him. Out he came, to be quickly followed by four others, ranging in age from about six to fourteen, all of them tousle-haired and scruffy, with torn and patched clothes. Without exception, their hands and faces gave the impression that they had at that very moment emerged from a coal mine, rather than from the lane at the back of the yard. One after the other they ran across the yard and into the kitchen, crowding together just inside the doorway, their dark faces turned expectantly towards the mound of sandwiches and the blue jug of milk that sat on the table. She crossed the kitchen and turned the keys in the doors that led to the dining-room and to the corridor. At the table she poured out five cups of milk.

  “There yez are now, boys. Get yourselves tucked into that,” Mrs Megarrity told them, taking a step backwards as her four sons and Mrs O’Hagan’s boy Sean surged around the table, hands darting in at the great slabs of sandwiches, mouths sucking hungrily at the milk.

  Through the sounds of jaws chomping and the slurping of milk broke the high-pitched voice of the youngest boy, Jack Megarrity.

  “That’s bloody mine, that is! Give it here!”

  “Is not!” Anthony retorted, running round the table and stuffing as much of the sandwich into his mouth as he could manage.

  “Shut yer mouth, will you?” Mrs Megarrity hissed. “Yez’ll have McAllister down here.”

  But Jack had launched a flying tackle at Anthony and the two of them fell in a heap to the floor, spitting and clawing like a pair of cats, bringing a plate and two cups down after them to smash on the floor. With a speed that belied her bulk, the Winter Cook was beside them, a long wooden spoon in her hand. The other three boys headed for the doorway. With indiscriminate aim and matching each word with a blow, she hissed at them,

  “Give – over – ye – pair of – buggers – and get up – to hell – out of that.” For a few seconds they carried on fighting, but the blows were falling on them with such ferocity that they at last scrambled to their feet and out of her reach, to stand panting and glaring hatred at each other, even more dishevelled than before. Mrs Megarrity advanced upon them again, spoon upraised, and had but half a stride to go when she was brought to a halt by the sound of the dining-room door handle being rattled. Then there was a knock on the door.

  “Mrs Megarrity, are you in there?”

  “Jasus, Mary and Joseph!” she hissed, “didn’t I tell yez? It’s McAllister!” Her voice took on a soft tone, with a politeness of address that she generally reserved for talking to members of the clergy. “I’ll be with ye in just one moment, Mr McAllister, so I will.” She turned and hit the nearest boy a sharp crack round the head with her wooden spoon. “Get out that door, ye bunch of whelps” she said in a harsh whisper, “and don’t make a sound!”

  Gladly they pulled open the back door and one by one slipped into the yard beyond.

  “Why did you have the door locked?” Dermot McAllister asked when Mrs Megarrity finally opened it to him.

  “T’was that bloody cat, Mr McAllister. Running about like a mad thing, it was.” She nodded towards the broken plate and cups on the floor. “It hasn’t been right since the vet took the nippers to it. I didn’t want it upstairs bothering the guests, so I didn’t.”

  Dermot gave a little smile.

  “Of course not, Mrs Megarrity. That’s your job.” She gave him a puzzled look but he continued, “I came in to see what was holding up the dinner.”

  “The dinner is it?” She hurried to the stove and swept the lid off the casserole dish. “It’ll be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Mr McAllister, done – I might say – to perfection. I know how yourself and the Missus likes the very best.”

  Dermot McAllister moved towards the door then hovered near it as the Winter Cook began rapidly to prepare the meal.

  “Yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Mrs Megarrity. The si
ze of my food bills, I’m beginning to think we’re feeding a night shift I don’t know about. I mean, we only have three guests, after all.”

  “Well, you’ve hit the nail right on the head, Mr McAllister, if you don’t mind me saying so. If you want my opinion, some of it’s taking legs.” She gave him a knowing look over a dish of steaming potatoes. “That Mary one. I’ll say no more.”

  “You think – Mary might be taking food home?”

  “Well, that’s not for me to say, Mr McAllister, but – she is a Hanlon, after all, and them’s the biggest tribe of tinkers God ever put breath in. They’d take the eye out your head and come back for the lashes.”

  “The bill I got from the breadman the other day, I thought we must be feeding the five thousand.” Wearily he shook his head. “I’m going to have to think about how we can make some economies around here – and get some more customers in while we’re at it, otherwise we’ll all end up in the poor house.” Going towards the door he turned back and said, “Mrs McAllister was getting a little agitated about the dinner not being ready. So if you could hurry it up a bit.”

  “Mr McAllister,” the Winter Cook said expansively, “I’ve got you the loveliest bit of cod that ever swum in God’s green ocean, brought round special by Wee Henry himself, God love him. And a white sauce to go with it,” she indicated the very saucepan, “that’ll melt in your mouths.”

  Dermot smiled and then winked at her. “Mrs Megarrity, I only wish I was a few years older.”

  She smiled coyly, not realising what he had said, but when the door was safely closed behind him she pulled a face and said in a whining voice,

  “‘Mrs McAllister’s getting a wee bit agitated.’ Well, tough bloody luck, Mrs High-and-Mighty!” She slapped a spoon into the sauce, sending drops of it spitting and sizzling onto the stove top.

  It had been in Dublin twelve years before that Agnes Friel had met Dermot McAllister, the big auburn-haired man from the North, with his freckled face and smiling green eyes. She had been attracted by his good looks and ready laugh, held by his easy manner and strange Northern accent, with its short vowels and lilting cadences. As she got to know him better in the following days and weeks, she began to discover and grow fond of his personality – so unlike hers – that made him by turns carefree to the point of recklessness, and a little melancholic, though never without a streak of kindliness which she thought at once admirable and endearingly naive. Those were the reasons, she had decided, or had perhaps imagined, as she lay alone at night in their bed, lulled to a half sleep by the sound of the waves lapping along the shore, while below in the shuttered hotel bar Dermot served drink for the laughing, garrulous faces. What she had never admitted to herself was that she had been attracted to Dermot because her friend Colette had seen him first at the party and accidentally bumped into him to strike up a conversation. A Wexford Friel could hardly let such a challenge go unheeded. And after all, Colette Grogan was only a grocer’s daughter and could hardly be expected to compete with a scion of what Agnes in her greater flights of fancy liked to think of as “landed gentry”, or in more sober moments, “gentlemen farmers”. She had gone up to Dublin for a few days in the hope that the boredom of rural life might be temporarily replaced by the modest excitement of shopping trips and Francis Cooley’s party. Dermot had come with two friends to the city for the All-Ireland Hurling Finals at Croke Park and had made acquaintance with Francis in The Long Hall pub in South Great George Street after the match. Of course, if Agnes had known that at the time, she might well not have spoken to Dermot at all. It was tantamount to him having picked her up in the pub. But that night she had enjoyed herself more, had laughed longer and louder at this humorous storyteller, than she had done for as long as she could remember, and most telling of all had abandoned, at his repeated request, her usual glass of sweet white wine for the whiskey and water that he drank with his stout. On reflection, the jollity of the night and the next morning’s hangover, could have served as a metaphor for their subsequent marriage. The fact that he was a hotel-owner, she would admit, may have had some little part to play in his attractiveness to her. She had fondly imagined some large establishment called the Strand Palace or the like – Colette said that Agnes read too many romantic novels – which would generate enough cash and provide the setting for her to hold court in the manner in which her mother did more modestly in Wexford. Now here she was, stuck in this Northern glen by the sea, not entirely unhappy, because she had her son and she did care for Dermot, but had grown tired of what she called “the parochialism and determined ruralism” of its inhabitants, where she still felt like what the locals called “a blow-in”. Her ready smile was still there, but now it was tight, almost painful. In her imagination other worlds beckoned, but if the Wexford Friels had nothing else, if they were lacking in humour and frugal with affection, they had a sense of duty. And she knew where her duty lay. Unfortunately for Agnes, Dermot was not quite so principled.

  Agnes slipped the small piece of cod from her fork, chewed it, tasted it and then said,

  “Yes, well, I suppose it is all right.” She neatly separated another few flakes of fish and with them poised on the end of her fork added, “But it took her long enough to prepare it. And these peas – they’re like buckshot. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was too busy eating – and feeding that tribe of hers – to concern herself about serving us.”

  “Now Agnes, you’ve got no proof of that at all.”

  “Dermot, I know she does, and I wouldn’t be surprised either if she’s stealing food to take home as well.”

  Their eight-year-old son Patrick, who disliked fish and had been poking through it in the hope of finding a bone as big as a whale rib in order to demonstrate the mortal danger in which he had been placed by being ordered to eat it, looked at his mother and said,

  “I looked out the upstairs window one time and there were kids all round the back door. Hundreds of them. Ah! Why’d you kick me, Dad?”

  “Get on with your dinner and mind your own business. You’ve got your music practice to do.”

  Patrick stabbed viciously at an innocent potato. “I hate music.”

  “I’m not surprised, the way you play the piano.”

  “Dermot, leave him alone,” Agnes said. “He’s doing very well for a beginner. You’d be better employed deciding how you’re going to get rid of that Megarrity woman.”

  “Yes,” Patrick said, seizing his opportunity, “I don’t like her. She smells – and she’s got a big fat arse.”

  “Patrick McAllister!” his mother almost shrieked. “Where did you learn a word like that?”

  Dermot busied himself with his dinner, his eyes narrowing against the expected tirade. Patrick, who had developed a considerable degree of low cunning for one so young, turned to his mother and said primly,

  “Mrs Megarrity said it. I thought it was all right – seeing as she’s a grown-up.”

  “Well, that’s it, Dermot! The woman will just have to go. I won’t have her – polluting my son with her bad language and uncouth manner. There’s little point in sending him to a good school if he comes home to hear that kind of language.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, Agnes, it was probably at school he heard it.”

  “Did not, smarty.”

  “That’s no way to speak to your father. Get on with your dinner. Dermot, you’ll have to get rid of her. I’ve been telling you that for years. I know I said I wouldn’t interfere in the running of the hotel, but enough’s enough.”

  “Now Agnes, you know how difficult it is to get anybody around here. And besides, she’s not exactly expensive. I’ll have a word with her. Leave it to me.” His roguish smile was met by an obstinate stare. “And you know, beneath that rough exterior, she’s got a heart of gold. Anyway, I’ve got more important things to worry about than Mrs Megarrity.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Such as this hotel. I’m not doing much more than breaking even, except in the summer season, a
nd you know how short that is.”

  “And when was it any different?”

  “Well, it wasn’t – much. But that was alright as long as the farming income kept up. Now that’s on a downer too. Sheep prices dropping, store cattle hardly worth the raising. I tell you, for two pins I’d sell this place – if I could find an eejit with enough money.”

  Agnes looked a little taken aback at this suggestion from her husband. Being the wife of a hotel owner, even of the Glens Hotel, carried a degree of prestige that would not be easily obtainable by other means.

  “Dermot, your father would turn in his grave. You couldn’t possibly sell the hotel.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe not. But I tell you, something’s got to be done, otherwise we’ll be eating spuds and milk.”

  With this, a sort of sullen silence descended upon the little group as they finished their main course and turned to the ice-cream, a dish that not even the Winter Cook could spoil.

  From the windows of her house in the main street of Inisbreen, Mrs McFall was in the habit of keeping an eye on the activities of her neighbours and of any passers-by. It was nothing personal, it was just that she was nosey. Now that obnoxious little McGhee man with the limp was standing across the street, staring at her and daring her to continue looking at him. She tossed her head and quickly turned away from the window, while Limpy smiled and continued on his way up the street and past the Inisbreen Stores, the brownpaper parcel under his arm containing a fresh trout, fetched out of the river the evening before by Dan Ahearn. A brown trout, Limpy had said to someone on the bridge, not one of those foreign bloody rainbow things. It would do nicely for his tea, so it would.