Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [82]
In the towns they passed by weathered cut-stone churches with towering spires, an old castle with high turrets and parapets, and rows of Victorian and Georgian houses behind stone walls on finely tended lawns.
Although Fitzmaurice had said nothing about taking her on an impromptu Cook’s tour, Sara appreciated his thoughtfulness and said so as they drove through Rathfarnham, a suburb of the city nestled against the foot of the Dublin Mountains several miles south of St. Stephen’s Green.
So this is his semidetached, she thought, as Fitzmaurice pulled to a stop in front of a two-story modern town house in an established subdivision. It had brick facing on the ground floor, a plastered exterior wall above with several windows that looked out on the street, and a pitched, shingled roof with shallow eaves. A common lawn in front of the building had separate walkways leading to the two ground-floor entrances.
Fitzmaurice pointed to his side of the semidetached before killing the engine. “Here we are, then,” he said. “Clan Fitzmaurice’s castle, wherein the lady of the house awaits along with my infant son, should he be home from university.”
Sara climbed out of the car. “It’s sweet,” she said.
Fitzmaurice shut the door and locked the car. “And within a very short distance of a real castle, where my grandfather worked as a groundskeeper when the Jesuits owned it. Sometime back they found secret tunnels at the castle, one of which runs to the golf course where I spend many pleasant afternoons slicing balls into the rough. We have megalithic tombs on the mountaintops and are home to the abbey where Mother Teresa of Calcutta first entered the religious life.”
“History is all around you,” Sara said as they walked toward the house.
“That it is,” Fitzmaurice said with a laugh. “We also are home to the first McDonald’s drive-through in Europe, for which, of course, we are eternally grateful.”
“Is that true?” Sara asked.
Fitzmaurice nodded and grinned. “We’re planning to raise a statue to Ronald McDonald on the town green to commemorate the historical event.”
Edna Fitzmaurice met them at the door. Green eyed, with laugh lines at the corners of a broad mouth, she was a tall full-figured woman dressed casually in jeans and a short-sleeve pullover top.
“So you are the woman who’s kept my husband from hearth and home,” she said, after greeting Sara warmly. “Come inside and tell me how he’s been misbehaving.”
In the living room Edna sat with Sara on a couch facing a fireplace, while Fitzmaurice opened a bottle of wine at the sideboard in the adjacent dining room. The small living room, comfortable and inviting, had scaled-down furnishings that created a feeling of spaciousness, and built-in shelves filled with books. From the kitchen came the aroma of roasting lamb with a hint of garlic. Footsteps on the stairway from the second floor announced the arrival of Sean Fitzmaurice, who rushed into the room and smiled at Sara with a toothy grin.
“Finally we get to meet,” he said, shaking her hand. “At the award ceremony I was warned to stay away. Garda business and all that. Are you really an American army officer?”
Sara smiled back at the boy. “I am.” No more than nineteen or twenty, Sean had his father’s wide shoulders, large hands, and blunt fingers, and his mother’s eyes and mouth.
“Leave her alone, Sean,” Fitzmaurice called out as he carried in the wineglasses. “The colonel is a married woman. Wife and mother, to be exact.”
After a glass of wine Sara helped Edna put the finishing touches on dinner, while Sean and Hugh set the table. Father, mother, and son were convivial company. Edna had bought the lamb—done to perfection—from a butcher who raised and slaughtered his own sheep on a farm in County Roscommon. A bowl of fruit topped off the meal, and it was then that Sean asked her if she’d read the works for which Brendan Coughlan had been honored at the National University.
“I have not,” Sara replied. “But he