The Carnival at Bray Read Online Free Page B

first time since Ronnie was born. And although she sometimes missed the simple reassurance of her little sister’s breathing in the night, Maggie could now listen to “Nightstick” without being asked what the lyrics meant, or cry when she felt sad without being asked what was wrong, or change her clothes without having to hide in the closet so that Ronnie wouldn’t stare at her breasts and ask her how old she was when she grew them (“I don’t know, it’s not like they inflated one night while Iwas sleeping”), and what they felt like (“skin”), and whether she needed help with all those bra hooks (“No, weirdo!”).
    The house was quiet—Laura had gone into town, where she’d picked up part-time work as a cashier at Dunne’s, Ronnie was over at a new friend’s house, and Colm was outside cutting the front grass. If she listened very carefully, Maggie could hear the waves at the edge of town sucking cold pebbles out to sea and hurling them back again. Just as it occurred to her that this wasn’t such a bad way to pass a Saturday, she heard a tentative knock at her door.
    â€œYeah?”
    She put down her magazine and the door opened just enough for Colm, sweaty and reeking of fresh grass, to stick his head in.
    â€œNeighbor’s dog had puppies last night,” he said. “I thought I’d go up and have a look. Wanna come?”
    It might have occurred to Maggie to say no—or even to be insulted for being asked. It was a Saturday evening and she was sixteen—she might have plans! But she didn’t, of course, and her new stepfather wasn’t the type of person to pretend any different in order to protect her pride.
    Socially, there had been possibilities at the beginning of the school year. Maggie had ridden along in the exodus of Saint Brigid’s open campus lunch policy, when the girls would eat hurriedly in the canteen and then, for the extra half hour they had free before classes resumed, roll up their skirts to expose their thighs and head out to roam the town in search of Saint Brendan’s boys. The Irish girls in her class, Maggie found, weren’t a whole lot different from the American girls she knew back home. Around guys, they acted shrill and shrieky, pushing their crushes playfully and unable to hide their wounded hearts when the boys made offhandedly cruel jokes about their heavy legs or too-bright lipstick. Maggie wasn’t good at flirting, and as a result, had never been kissed. Being around the shouting boys in their loosened ties bothexcited and intimidated her. When she joined her classmates on these boy hunts, she became practically mute. She didn’t bring anything to the table—didn’t make anyone laugh, didn’t attract more attention—and so by the time the fall bank holiday arrived, the little buzz she’d garnered by being a Yank had subsided, and she couldn’t blame the small pack of girls she’d made inroads with when they stopped inviting her to come along with them. It was almost with a sense of relief that Maggie returned to the canteen for the whole lunch hour with a smattering of other unimportant girls: the fat, the dandruffed, and the shy, working on their French conjugations and trying not to be embarrassed for each other.
    The owner of the dog was Mike O’Callaghan, who was the nephew of Dan Sean O’Callaghan, Bray’s most famous resident. At ninety-nine, Dan Sean was one of the oldest men in County Wicklow, but according to Colm, that was not what made him so notable. It was the fact that he was still in such good health for his age that he gave the younger members of the town hope that they, too, might grow old with dignity, avoiding the piss-smelling retirement homes or the palliative care center in Dun Laoghaire. Though frail, Dan Sean still lived on his own, free of oxygen tanks or babbling dementia or wheelchairs. He still went on