4

Sam’s fear that she won’t be acceptable to the Auburn women lessens as soon as she begins to throw herself into the house-warming. This she does with the same enthusiasm that is making her career such a success with the advertising company, High Resolution.

Philip has no such baggage, although his father, Seamus, had come from a haberdashery in Killenaule, and had little to recommend him, except being described around the village as ‘Killenaule’s Tyrone Power’. Philip’s mother, a school principal, had nurtured in him and his brother a relaxed sense of coming from good stock. He had heard her stories of her two uncles – the war heroes – who had fought ‘for the rights of poor little Catholic Belgium’. Both army captains, they had been assigned to the Connaught Rangers: one was killed in action, the other taken prisoner at Augustabad. Her stories too, of the prize-winning cattle her father reared in his lush fields outside Roscrea had engendered in Philip’s mind a relaxed confidence that he was among his own sort at Blackrock College.

For him, the house-warming might serve to advance his position with Nat Am since a few of the guests would come from his banking colleagues, including the chief executive, Sharkey. Despite the boom, the banking world had become a bear pit; no one was secure – especially at Nat Am, where Sharkey was an exception to the banking culture of finding a quiet corner for someone who was not shaping up. ‘Keep them on their toes: that’s my motto,’ Sharkey reminds his staff constantly at the bank. ‘Shape up or ship out. In this fucking world, guys, you’re only as good as the last loan you nailed down.’

When the guests arrive on the evening of the barbecue, Sam and Philip are out at the front of the house to greet them. In the spacious hall, with its curved stairway, and balcony, are glasses, bottles of wine, whiskey and minerals on small tables. Women from The Auburn Society – as they call themselves – help to serve the drinks. Since their foundation they have devoted themselves to fund-raising for worthy causes, such as drought in Ethiopia, and now Philip’s education project in Tanzania. They are also alert to any rezoning in the area, and badgered the city council when they got wind of plans to build low-budget houses in the land vacated by the nuns.

As the guests stand around with glasses in their hands, the spell of exceptionally fine weather and the lovely job Philip and Sam have done to the house serve as openers for their party talk. ‘Let’s hope,’ they say, ‘we’re not getting our summer this week and then wall-to-wall downpours when the children are on their holidays!’

In a cream linen suit, Sharkey parks his Bentley Continental halfway down the avenue. With him are his ‘Eyes and Ears’ as they were known around the bank: Wheeler, and Brennan. Of the two, Wheeler is the more junior at Nat Am. He is the son of an insurance broker with whom Sharkey has had the occasional game of golf while they discussed investments in Nat Am. Wheeler’s chief desire in life had been to gain a tennis scholarship and then go on the circuit. A self-made man, his father wouldn’t hear of it, and contrived to meet Sharkey. ‘All that seems to be in that young man’s head right now are tennis courts and young ladies,’ he said over lunch. ‘But I’ve no intention of seeing him become a tennis bum. He has already fathered a child and won’t go next or near mother or child.’

Never happier than on a tennis court, Wheeler still nibbles at the dream of winning one of the regional tournaments, even if he is now well into his thirties.

Very soon, bmws and Volvos, as well as a few Mercs and suvs, which seem straight out of the showroom, line the avenue. One man, small and stocky, his Leinster rugby shirt stretched across his barrel chest, tells Clifford and the others in the circle about his collision of the previous week. ‘A gobshite from Eastern Europe smashed into me. Broadside. Lucky thing my Merc has a side impact protection system, and excellent road-holding.’ His listeners nod in sympathy. The gobshite of course had no insurance. Lucky thing he himself had comprehensive. ‘25k the damage. Keep a whole village in his fucking country for ten years.’

The attention he gains from the side-impact protection system and road-holding of his Kompressor sets him up for a lecture on its overall performance.

‘Jeremy Clarkson drove the shit out of it. You know Jeremy,’ he laughs. ‘Gave it the thumbs up. I went out the day after and traded in.’

In the kitchen, steam is rising from the big cauldrons on the Richmond duel fuel range; the air is filled with the aroma of spices. The Auburn women help Sam to look after her guests: they trip out onto the patio offering titbits, nuts and canapés. The warm sun shines through the beech trees and casts dappled shades on the women’s linen dresses. They compliment Sam on her new hairstyle.

Very Hillary.

Very Sam.

One of the women has breaking news: ‘Yes, she’s back. Got rid of Fergus and looking fabulous – can you believe it? Wearing Paul Costelloe. And guess what? She’s been asked to go on The Restaurant later in the summer.’ She turns to include Philip’s mother, Una, who is sitting on one of the wicker chairs. ‘You know – the one with Tom Doorley. Great fun.’

‘Oh,’ says Una, for politeness’ sake. ‘Yes, I understand. Great.’

More guests arrive with hugs, air-kisses and bottles of champagne. The hallway echoes to the sound of loud conversations spilling out into the kitchen and the lounge. The bright sunshine on the kitchen cupboards and the living room furniture gives the house an air of unreality, as if it is the setting for a play, and the guests and their conversations are characters with a prepared script. The connecting doors are all open, affording free movement: people are chatting in the living room and in the kitchen, and out at the back by the French windows, so that the selection of popular classics and jazz pieces that Sam had programmed in the Bose Sound System goes unheard.

When Sam is satisfied that everything is under control, she leads the Auburns on a grand tour of La Salle. ‘Needed a relationship with the garden.’ She indicates the double-glazed patio doors, and shows how she has opened up the back of the house to the light.

‘Absolutely, it really, really works,’ says one of the women.

‘Well done, Sam.’

‘Oh my God. Yes, that works.’

‘Now,’ says one of Sam’s school friends, ‘you have to see a lunette window to die for.’ She strides ahead to the east side of the house. ‘Voilà!’ she says, and waits for the effect to sink in.

‘Yes, gosh. Awesome.’

They move on. The lights are Danish; Sam spotted them in a shop during an idle hour in Copenhagen. Had to have them.

She takes them right through the upper storey and back downstairs to the dining room. ‘House of Ireland,’ she says with a sweep of her hand over the dining room suite. ‘At a snip.’ The tour ends at the spacious kitchen with its ivory oak-painted cupboards, the breakfast room, the white walls and marble floors. ‘Natural light,’ says Sam, ‘only penetrates for six metres, so bright-coloured walls and floors make the light reflect, and give a great sense,’ she makes a curving gesture as if her two hands are holding a precious vase. ‘Connectedness and positive karma.’

‘Yes,’ one of the women reflects, ‘you know what the house does also? I’ve just discovered.’ They turn towards her. ‘It goes out there to the garden, grabs the landscape and brings it right back into the house.’

‘What an achievement. Good for you, Sam.’ Sam’s school friend gives her blessing to the finished product.

‘Yeah,’ Sam leans smartly on the basalt stone top of the kitchen island, and declares: ‘We are now masters of our own destiny.’

Out on the garden, where Philip is busy with the barbecue, a group of men – mostly Nat Am colleagues – are standing around having a beer. Sharkey is holding forth on a solution to the shootings and stabbings, now a weekly reality in Dublin and provincial towns. ‘Social welfare should have been cut for these parasites – long ago. And I’m talking back in the eighties. They’ve been laughing up their sleeves at us paying for their savagery. I used to see them going into boozers in broad daylight and then next door to Paddy Power’s. Goddamn layabouts who spawned these savages.’

‘Should’ve been castrated, Aengus,’ says Wheeler.

They chortle.

‘Surely at this stage the death penalty has to be considered,’ says one of the men who had read in the paper about an attack on an Australian couple at five in the evening. ‘A hundred yards from the Gresham. Can you believe it?’

But as they draw on their cigars and sip their drinks, they move on to more pleasant subjects: they are full of praise for the enlightened way the banks are being allowed to get on with their work without interference.

‘Say what you like about her, Maggie Thatcher freed up initiative. A lot to be said for the free market.’ The stocky bloke in the rugby shirt gives himself space to sum it all up. When he inserts his finger into the ringpull of a beer can, he releases a swoosh of trapped air; foam rushes to the top and spits in his face.

‘Yes,’ says Sharkey, ‘this country is really on the march. No reason why anyone shouldn’t be on the property ladder. Get on the ladder, guys, or it’ll be too late.’ He has a few apartments in Galway and Limerick, the country house and stud outside Gorey, but the villa at Cap Ferrat is strictly family. He avoids telling them about the millions he has invested in the Dublin Docklands Development and in a Canadian mining company. ‘The apartments are a welcome source of revenue. The students are fine, but one has to keep an eye on these goddamn non-nationals. They’d fuck off without paying.’ Cigar smoke and the scent of freshly cut grass idle in the still air.

‘Best thing that ever happened to this country were the tax breaks for urban renewal; opened up the economy,’ says a Nat Am client. All the while, Philip, who has a mound of spare ribs, burgers and steaks on a tray beside him, is throwing in the odd word about apartments and generous loans while he works.

A woman, crammed into a black dress, arrives alone. She laughs a lot and is loud in her explanation that her boyfriend is running late: ‘You know boys and their football.’ One of the caterers hands her a glass of wine. She summons up a wide grin for the women out on the patio, most of whom she doesn’t know. Nevertheless, living up to her reputation as the hilarious one in Sam’s office, she does a routine of the latest jokes, some self-deprecating about her size. When she has exhausted the list, she goes back into the house to refill her glass, and runs into Sam in one of the hallways. She is gushing in her praise of Sam’s figure and chiffon dress. ‘Picked it off the rack in Barcelona,’ Sam says, admiring herself in a baroque wall mirror.

‘Oh, it’s so you. For that figure, I would kill ze bull.’

‘By the way, Barcelona was a hoot.’ Sam is still preening. ‘You’ve simply got to come with us the next time.’

‘Next time. Most definitely next time.’

Alone in the corridor, Sam looks in the mirror; her party smile collapses and a lost-looking forty-three-year-old child stares out at her. In her heart, she is jaded, and wishes she could go upstairs, slip between the cool sheets and sleep for a week. But the house, resounding with the buzz of party-talk, reminds her to replace her mask: she strides out towards the French windows. Once again, she is Sam, who keeps all the plates spinning.

Already some of the guests are forming a line that leads to the kitchen where two or three Auburn women are at the ready behind plates of smoked salmon, cold cuts of meat, shrimp bought that day from the fish shop in the village, and bowls of tossed salad.

Gradually, they return to the patio with their plates, and become animated about the Finnish lake experience at some hotel in Wexford. One of the women interrupts them, picks up her glass of wine as Sam is passing by. ‘C’mon, Sam,’ she says, ‘this is your evening. Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?’

Sam tilts her head in a girlish way. ‘You’ve got me there.’ She thinks for a moment and then smiles broadly: ‘With my finger in many pies. And still top of my game.’

‘Awesome,’ says a woman, standing with her legs apart. ‘We know what we want and we’re not afraid to ask for it – right, girls?’

They raise their glasses.

‘What I want to know,’ says one of the tennis players from the local club, ‘is where do you get your energy?’

‘Positive karma,’ Sam beams, and rests her plate on a low table.

All the while Doc Clifford is immersed in the rhythm of the evening. This is his scene: the laughter, the mouth-watering smell drifting from the barbecue, and the conversations. Evenings he and his wife hosted when he played the piano until late come winging back to him. As soon as he steps onto the patio, the big woman comes over and says: ‘Isn’t Sam unbelievable?’

‘And throws a great party.’

Gradually the women who had opted for Philip’s steaks return; they place serviettes on their laps and continue their chat while they eat. One of them has a newsflash: the Le Masneys have sold ‘Shangri-La’ in Suffolk Downs. ‘Wait for it, girls – for €2.4 million.’ Her sister is great friends with them – Mal and Grace – she’s devastated that they’re leaving.

They look at her with blank expressions.

‘Don’t you know?’ she explains. ‘The Le Masneys – the crystal glass people. I hope,’ she continues, ‘it’s not one of those country fellows – a Johnny-come-lately – who’s moving in. The Le Masneys were good fun. Never met anyone who can work a room like Grace.’

While she is holding forth on Mal and Grace, the spare figure of Father Tom McKeever appears from around a corner of the house. A priest who returned to Ireland, having contracted malaria in Kenya, he came across Philip and Sam while he was a tutor in ucd, and a part-time chaplain there.

Sam rushes to greet him with an embrace. She calls to Philip and the three of them go on about how it’s a shame that it’s been so long since they’ve met, and how quickly time passes. Sam describes him to her women friends as ‘our bolt-hole from college days; almost succeeded in leading us to the far Left.’ She recalls the times they crashed out in his St Stephen’s Green presbytery, the stacks of sleeping bags lying around, and the many cups of coffee they drank coming up to exams. ‘We’ll catch up later, Tom,’ she says. ‘So glad you could come.’ Then, after getting him drink and food, she is off again.

While scrutinizing the circle of chiffons and linens from Barcelona, McKeever listens to a woman beside him announcing that her son, who is at King’s Inns, is off to South Africa in the summer to build houses for the coloured people. McKeever indulges her with broad smiles and nods of approval.

The main group has recovered from the interruption, and continues to talk about the K Club and to praise Russell, who has a couple of the Ladycastle apartments overlooking the eight-eenth hole.

‘A gentleman,’ says one of the Auburns. ‘No time whatever for those who try to put him down. He’s a downright decent man, and not a bit pretentious. Great fun, and a panic when he does his Monty piece.’

‘What’s that?’ a woman asks.

‘He puts on his Field Marshal Montgomery uniform – his Monty bit. Just for a laugh. He’d have you in stitches. We played golf with him down at the K Club.’ She and her husband have been to his house in Barbados – ‘And he’s so good to charities.’

‘Yeah, smart fellow, alright.’ McKeever chuckles while chew-ing his food.

They had forgotten him, and, now surprised, turn in his direction. The golfing wife continues to talk about Barbados, but McKeever says almost to himself: ‘They tell me his pot of gold is abroad. Clever man. Mr Collector General will never get near that little piggy bank.’

She frowns. ‘With due respect, you’re conveniently ignoring the fact that, through his initiative, he’s giving work to hundreds who contribute to the economy.’

‘Oh, yes, I’d forgotten. Yes, they certainly contribute to the economy. You’re right there. When you think about it,’ he looks away towards The Sleeping Giant. ‘That American woman – oh, her name escapes me now. She was right: only the little people pay taxes. Ah, such is life.’

In deference to the occasion, they suppress their irritation, and resume their small talk. The priest once more becomes invisible. While he eats, he scans the terraced garden: men in chinos and sports shirts are laughing loudly and opening beer cans. One of them is doing air swings with an imaginary golf club. Some are standing in groups near the barbecue where Philip is in his element. The big woman is taking photographs of a group lazing around where the Brothers used to play croquet. Above the trees, and way out on the bay, yachts are heading for the harbour.

McKeever sighs: ‘Well now, isn’t this great? What a lovely place.’

He spots a cricket bat lying on the patio, puts aside his plate, and stands to show the women how a batsman readies himself for the bowler. He had been dipping in and out of their conversation on the latest self-development course: Inner Harmony. Gives a total balance of yin and yang. It’s amazing. Total relaxation.

‘Interesting what you were saying there about that … what did you call it? Interior?’

‘Inner Harmony.’ The golfing wife stands tall at the patio doors. ‘I don’t suppose that would be part of your agenda,’ adding with a sneer, ‘Father.’

McKeever runs his hand through his mop of silver hair and smiles. ‘Makes us happy – is that the idea? Sure, aren’t we all for that?’

‘Yes,’ she snaps. ‘Happy and free of baggage.’

‘That’s why we must be the happiest people … is it in Europe, or in the world?’ He knows that she is staring at him but he starts to do a short backward swing with the cricket bat. ‘Willow, that’s what cricket bats are made of, and then they treat them with linseed oil.’ He holds up the cricket bat. ‘Linseed oil – makes them more resistant to shock, wear and tear.’ He grins: ‘Might try some myself.’

Una finds the quip very funny.

The golfing wife, however, is not finished with him. ‘Shrewd business sense and can-do is what has dragged this country out of the dark ages. That’s why we’re the happiest.’

‘Yeah, you could be right there.’ McKeever feels along the smooth surface of the cricket bat. ‘Happiest,’ he says. ‘Well, I don’t know. I was speaking to the city coroner recently. He was telling me that six young men … God help us … gave in to the dark in the last year. One or two claimed to be accidents, but … he has a theory about that too.’

‘So?’ a woman asks.

‘Six young men in the past year. Young people binge-drinking like there’s no tomorrow. Happy, are we?’

‘We’re the envy of Europe.’

As if to himself, McKeever says: ‘Envy of Europe. Hah.’

He leans on the cricket bat. ‘I love those old folk tales; you know – the ones about fairies.’

One of the older women smiles: ‘My father used tell us those, God rest him. Used to scare the life out of us.’

‘Well maybe you’ve heard this already. It’s about the man who in the dead of night plays beautiful fiddle music for the fairies. The best you’ve ever heard in your whole life. Anyway, doesn’t your man get a whole pot of gold from the fairies because they delight in his music. He goes home happy, sleeps like a baby. The first thing he does in the morning is to look into the pot of gold. But sure, all that’s in the pot are dried up leaves.’

He lays the cricket bat against the wall. ‘I don’t know,’ he says as he begins to saunter off. ‘Maybe there’s something in us Irish always looking for the pot of gold. Hah? Sure we can always blame the Brits, and what they did to us, if things go wrong. Go bhfoire Dia orainn. I enjoyed our chat.’

When he is strolling away towards the barbecue, a woman turns to the one beside her.

‘What’s he on about?’

Holding two bottles of chablis to charge their glasses, Sam joins them for a minute; they explain what had happened. She looks down the garden where McKeever is now hovering around the barbecue. ‘He was never like that. Full of life. It could be the malaria, or maybe it’s Africa. He did a stint there.’ She lowers her voice: ‘Someone said he got a breakdown.’

The stars are out when the guests are drifting off. A faint smell of cooked meat lingers around the barbecue where Philip has lit the patio heater for the few men, including Clifford, who are having a last drink and draining the evening of its remaining pleasures. Egan is giving Ponies and Yankees for Ascot and the Curragh.

Just as when they arrived, Sharkey and his disciples make a noisy departure, and are full of praise for what Sam and Philip have done for La Salle. ‘You’ve opened the season in great style,’ he commends them at the front door. Others are getting into their Mercs and suvs, so that a red stream of brake lights is lighting up the driveway, and powerful engines are purring in the balmy night.

‘The American Evening is only what … a few weeks away,’ Sharkey remarks to Philip. ‘Your twist, Philip; but if you want to pass on it this time …’

‘No prob. Booking all done for Robin Hill.’ Philip had no intention of passing over a glorious opportunity to network with major clients and useful contacts from other banks.

‘I’d like to run something by you,’ says Sharkey. ‘Lunch next Thursday? Let’s do La Mer.’ They chat for another while and again praise the weather and the success of the barbecue. A full moon is shining on the cobbleblocking, and the sultry breeze coming up from the bay bears a promise of long days ahead.

‘Sharkey wants to run something by me,’ Philip tells Egan as he walks with him to his car.

‘When Sharkey wants to run something by you, he’s already made up his mind,’ says Egan before he steps in.

‘We both know that.’ Philip taps the roof of the car. ‘See you tomorrow.’