Chapter 14
‘I never answered your question properly, Mr Dunne.’
Enda was taking a greedy slug of his froth-topped Guinness. ‘Ahh.’ He gave her a satisfied smile, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘A meal in every glass that. Did you know it’s full of vitamins?’ Then, seeing Grace, who did know, because she’d heard it more times than she’d had hot dinners, waiting expectantly, he added, ‘And what question was that, then?’
‘What’s brought me home.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘It’s a music festival I’ve come home for.’
Chloe placed her elbows on the bar and rested her chin on her interlaced hands. ‘First I’ve heard of it. We could do with some excitement around here. Where can I get tickets, then? I’m fed up with The Fire Station over there in Kilticaneel. It’s the same old, same old.’
The Fire Station was the only nightclub around, situated in the biggest town in their locale, and having been there a handful of times herself over the years, she didn’t blame Chloe.
‘It’s not being held until the end of August, but I’ll put your name down for a ticket, shall I?’
‘How much?’ Chloe asked.
‘Only sixty-five euros, so it’s not exorbitant like some festivals, and it’ll only be a one-day affair.’
‘G’won then – count me in.’
Grace fished the notebook she’d bought for the express purpose of taking notes while she was home and scribbled in Chloe’s name under the heading ‘Reserve Tickets For’. The other pages were filling up with all the things that would need to be put in place for the festival to even get off the ground, starting with the word ‘BUDGET’ in capital letters. It was a big hurdle to clamber over, given she didn’t have one.
‘What’s this all about, young Grace?’ Ned Kenny asked.
Enda’s cloth-cap-covered head was tilted to one side as he waited for her to reply.
Grace told her attentive audience of three about Clara Casey’s roof having caved in and the house flooding. She decided not to mention her friend’s insurance oversight.
As it happened, they’d already heard about her misfortune, and Mr Kenny shook his head. ‘I remember when her lad got sick a few years back. The poor cray-thur. That family has had more than their share of things to deal with.’
There was a murmur of agreement, and before Chloe could open her mouth and mention her cousin’s cousin’s friend of a friend who’d gone through the same thing as Alfie – Chloe always knew of someone – Grace informed them of her plans to fundraise enough money to ensure Clara’s roof was repaired and replace the school’s damaged equipment by holding a music festival here in Clara’s home village of Emerald Bay. When she mentioned The Shamrockers were her headline act, never mind her only act, Chloe squealed, making them all jump.
‘Chris Dorrance is a babe. I can’t believe he’s a local. I’ve been watching their live gigs on TikTok. The Shamrockers are brilliant, so they are.’
‘Dorrance, you say?’ Ned Kenny’s ears had pricked up, as had Enda’s.
‘Yes,’ Grace confirmed, knowing what was coming.
‘As in your father’s arch-enemy Mark Dorrance’s son? The one with the lovely voice, like.’
Grace sighed. ‘The same.’
‘Ah, that explains things,’ Enda said, exchanging a knowing glance with Ned Kenny, who nodded his agreement.
‘Explains what?’ Chloe was lost.
‘Why Liam was in foul humour when he returned from Galway with this one.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘My dad and Chris’s dad don’t see eye to eye.’
Enda and Ned had an eye and an ear on village goings-on. Perhaps they knew what had gone down between them, Grace thought. ‘You don’t know what that was all about, do you?’ she asked them.
‘My lips are sealed.’ Mr Kenny mimed locking them and tossing away an imaginary key.
‘Melodious is the closed mouth.’ Enda Dunne spouted the old Irish proverb sanctimoniously at Grace.
It would seem those who’d been around Emerald Bay long enough were privy to the feud’s origins, and Grace was suddenly fed up. ‘Why won’t youse tell me what went on between them?’ She glared at each of the two co-conspirators until they began to fidget under her stare.
‘Jaysus, what’s he after wearing?’ Chloe said out the corner of her mouth before heading down the opposite end of the bar.
Grace assumed she was referencing one of the cyclists. Mr Kenny’s mutterings about indecent exposure confirmed her suspicion, and given she’d no wish to see a middle-aged man in Lycra, her gaze didn’t falter from her targets. The staring competitions she’d held with Binky, the tabby cat that spent a good portion of time at hers and Chris’s flat, had paid off, she thought as Enda began to waiver.
It was Ned Kenny who caved in the end, however. ‘Listen, young Grace. You didn’t hear this from me, all right?’
Grace nodded eagerly. At last, she was going to get to the bottom of it.
‘But you’ll have to ask you mammy about it, given the fuss they were after kicking up was all over her in the first place. And I’m saying no more on the subject.’
Mark Dorrance and her dad had fought over her mam? It was the first she’d heard of that, and Grace desperately wanted to know the ins and outs of it but could tell from Mr Kenny’s face he meant business.
How strange to think of her mammy and daddy being in a possible love triangle. The thing with parents was you never envisaged their lives without you in it. They were your mam and dad, and it was weird to think about them being Liam and Nora, two individual young people forging their way in the world.
She tried and failed to picture her dad making her mam’s stomach do somersaults the way hers did when she was around Chris. Then decided it was time she went through to the kitchen, because her mam and nan would be wondering where she’d got to. But before Grace could hop off her stool, Enda sat bolt upright, banging his glass on the bar.
‘I’m after having an idea.’
Grace refrained from any smart-arse remarks as she waited for him to elaborate.
‘Where are you after holding this festival of yours, Grace?’ Enda was a bundle of fidgety energy.
Grace shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet. That’s one of the things I’ve come home to try and sort out.’
Enda’s eyes narrowed cannily. ‘Hasn’t your farmer wan in the South of England there made a small fortune holding that big festival on his land each year? You know the one. He started it in the seventies.’
‘Glastonbury, you mean?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I suppose so, but I’m sure he gives a decent chunk of it to charity. Why?’
‘Well, haven’t I fields and fields with only a few token sheep and cows to keep the grass down on them these days.’
Bubbles of excitement began to fizz, and Grace jumped in quickly. ‘Are you offering us the use of your land, Enda?’
Ned Kenny slapped him on the back. ‘Good man, Enda.’
Enda put his pint down as he began coughing. ‘Whoa. Hold your horses, because I’d need paying, like. A pensioner’s got to make his fortune where he can.’
Grace’s face fell. ‘It’s for a charitable cause, though, Enda. I couldn’t offer you more than a token gesture of thanks.’ She decided not just to tug the retired farmer’s heartstrings but to yank them. ‘Sure, you wouldn’t want to deprive little Alfie Casey and his mam of a roof over their heads or the young wans of Emerald Bay the technology they’re going to need to succeed in our modern world, now would you?’
Enda shifted on his stool, looking uncomfortable.
‘Think of the poor little cray-thur and what he’s already been through, Enda. What his mammy went through. And do you want the children of Emerald Bay to be the thick eejits who don’t know how to use a computer?’ Ned Kenny piped up. ‘And you, with all those fields not being used. What would Kitty say if she found out you were being so tight-fisted?’
Grace held her breath, waiting to see if the mention of her nan, whom Enda carried a torch for – although if you were a sceptic, you might wonder whether it was actually her cooking he was so fond of – would hold sway.
‘Sure.’ Enda threw his hands up after a few torturous seconds. ‘What would I do with a fortune anyway?’
‘Thanks a million, Mr Dunne.’ Grace dimpled and threw her arms around the surprised farmer. He might be retired, but he still smelled plenty farmy, she thought, squeezing his bony shoulders tight in gratitude.
Letting Enda go, she high-fived Mr Kenny, thoroughly pleased with herself. She’d only been home fifteen minutes or so, and she’d the venue sorted. She couldn’t wait to tell Chris! Surely it was a good omen for everything else falling into place nicely, too?
‘Not so fast. I’ve one condition.’
Enda’s words made Grace freeze statue-still. That’s what you got tempting fate, she thought. ‘What’s that, then?’
‘You’re to put in a good word with your nan for me, young Ava.’
Grace’s lips twitched, and her smile spread across her face. She didn’t bother to correct him this time as she said, ‘Now that, Mr Dunne, I can do!’