Once Upon A Summer

Patricia O'Reilly

Description

It is 1959. The class of 4A at Rose Horn's convent school in Dublin has discovered boys. And dating. And kissing. Rose dreams of love. And of exchanging her thick lisle stockings and bulky school uniform for the daring black chiffon numbers of Hollywood stars. When her mother discovers Rose's secret trysts with Frank Fennelly, she banishes her to spend summer in the depths of Kerry - far from temptation, she believes.But beneath the peaceful exterior of Fenit village, with its close community and simple pleasures, lurks a wild place of social undercurrents. Here Rose meets heart-throb Mikey Daw, and she is drawn into the adult world of broken promises, hidden secrets and bitter tragedy.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Cape Press
• Date de parution: 13 mars 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780956363237
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Once Upon a Summer
Patricia O Reilly
*
Patricia O Reilly writes with passion and bravely unpicks societal taboos in an attempt to explore the damaging impace to ignorance and repression. Irish News
1959 is the summer that marks 15-year old Rose Horn for ever. RTE Guide
Love and loss, innocence and romance set in 1950s Kerry and Dublin. Books Ireland
Accomplished story-telling with characters that are alive on every page. Once Upon a Summer will, undoubtedly, sell like hot cakes. Book Look
About the Author
Patricia O Reilly is a writer, researcher and lecturer/trainer in various aspects of writing. She has written extensively for Irish newspapers and magazines, and is a regular contributor to radio. Her non-fiction books include Dying with Love (1992), Writing for the Market (1994), Earning Your Living from Home (1996), and Wording Mothers (1997). Once Upon a Summer is her first novel.
This one is for me. For as long as I can remember, I ve wanted to write big story .
2000, 2014 Patricia O Reilly
Patricia O Reilly has asserted her rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by Cape Press
First published and printed in 2000 by Wolfhound Press Ltd
First published in eBook format in 2014
ISBN: 9780956363237
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
All names, characters, places, organisations, businesses and events are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Glossary
Acknowledgements
While writing Once Upon a Summer, I listened for my voice and, when I heard it, followed it through a maze of twists and turns to muddy the line between fact and fiction. Characters and incidents which started with recognisable traits escaped into a deliberate fictional anonymity. Several of the set pieces were first outed in RT Radio l s Sunday Miscellany.
The locations are real. The suburbs of Dublin. The town of Tralee. And Fenit village where I spent many happy summers. Regrettably, I never met a Mikey, though I did pick carragheen. In the interests of fiction, I have taken some geographic liberties, such as relocating the 1959 Rugby Senior School Final; Tansey s gate and woods and the sandy beach of Fenit do not exist outside my imagination. However, the remains of the graveyard are still there, as is Samphire Terrace, now mainly converted into trendy holiday homes.
Thanks for help and assistance to the staff of The National Library of Ireland, Tralee County Library, the Garda S ocha na, The National Maternity Hospital Dublin and The Sacred Heart Hospital Cork, The Catholic Press Office, Maynooth College (Department of Theology), Irish Rugby Union (Leinster Branch). And thanks for the Nativity Play story to the Most Reverend R.H.A. Eames, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. It was part of his speech during Irish PEN s 1998 annual dinner.
Prologue
Dublin, Present Time
The monthly Sunday lunch would not be the same without Zo . As usual, railing against discipline. Gran, don t you think I should be allowed to the disco? Dressed in black from head to toe, cropped hair the colour of cranberries, Zo demanded attention. Fearless was the word Rose used to describe her favourite grandchild. The only one of them with a bit of spunk.
All the family here today. Rose at the head of the oval mahogany table. In the man-of-the-house place. Hers now for the past five years, since the death of her husband. The table was laid with damask linen, gleaming silver, sparkling crystal; and a centrepiece of late roses, Schoolgirl , planted with great ceremony the day Viola, their eldest, had started school, the blooms picking up the pinky-peach cross-stitching of the luncheon mats. Well Rose remembered her mother embroidering them.
So many happy memories tingeing the grief for her man. The legacy he had left helped, she supposed. Loneliness in luxury and all that. Still, she often said she would trade this house and her portfolio of shares for another day with him. Another hour. Probably even ten minutes. Though of recent times in the velvet quiet of the night she was beginning to accept that he was gone from her. For ever. Gradually, she was starting to recognise that it was time to take up the reins of her own life.
Her children were some comfort. Not that she saw much of them - they were adults now with their own lives. Busy, busy. Rushing from one appointment to another. All of them successful in their chosen careers. It was intriguing, Rose thought, how different they were, given that they had the same parents, upbringing and environment. But, most importantly, hadn t they lived with the example of their father?
Zo reminded Rose of the way she would like to have been at her age. Full of courage, recklessly out spoken. Zo had a good head on her shoulders. Too sensible to be harmed by a disco. Still, she would not interfere. That s a matter for your parents, she heard herself say, rather prissily.
Everyone s going. All my friends. Pouting dramatically as only Zo could, the silver ring in her nostril catching the glint of September sunlight, she addressed her mother, Do you want me to be a social nerd?
No, said Viola, fashionably thin; with blonde hair, immaculately dressed in scarlet designer casuals and fighting not to show her irritation. I wouldn t want to be responsible for that. Viola was riding on a high at the success of Imagine, the PR company she had started on a whim, which had taken off beyond her wildest imaginings. But I certainly wasn t going to discos, or anywhere else, at your age, she assured her daughter, refusing to meet her own mother s eye, fiddling with her cigarette pack, resisting the urge to light up before dessert.
I m not a child. I m nearly sixteen. You have to let me grow up, Zo insisted, stabbing at the air with her knife. Dark purple varnish on the childishly bitten nails.
You re still fifteen. Neither your dad nor I are stopping you Viola began, a definite touch of asperity creeping into her voice.
We ll talk about this later. When we get home. The patient voice of reason from Richard. Zo s antics amused her father and he found it difficult to take her seriously. Twenty years Viola s senior, he was a prosperous barrister who had settled contentedly into early old age. His passions were his wife, his daughter and Beethoven. He appreciated good wine too and, taking another sip of St Emilion, thought how he was never disappointed with his mother-in-law s choice of wine.
Zo sighed. There weren t discos in your day, sure there weren t, Uncle Trev? Zo adored Trevor, Rose s youngest, and deferred to him constantly, taking as gospel his every pronouncement on the social scene.
Trevor was a maker of television documentaries, unmarried, flitting successfully from job to job and from relationship to relationship. Variety in all aspects of life, a necessary part of the creative process, he assured his mother. He had been late arriving. Something about running someone to the airport. Probably his latest girl.
No. No discos. Nothing modern. Devilment glinted in Trevor s eyes, which were the same deep blue as the denim of his shirt. All kinds of demonstrations, though. Greenham Common, bra-burning and, of course, streaking.
FR, the eldest, looked up from his plate, check waistcoat straining across his torso. Rose often said he was born sensible. He had been plump from babyhood, with that placid curiosity so often the precursor to success. An accountant with a golden touch for investment, he tucked into his food as though there was no tomorrow. The slender, outgoing girl he had married had gradually taken on his body shape and disposition over the years. Their three daughters, fourteen, thirteen and ten, and their eight-year-old son, were miniatures of their parents.
Really, Trevor, he remonstrated, placing his knife and fork tidily across his plate.
What s streaking? It was Julie, FR s eldest.
Taking off your clothes. And running stark naked. Usually across a football pitch.
Julie blushed the delicate pink of her cardigan, and FR started again, Trevor. Do you have to ?
From the end of the table Cissie met Rose s eye and chortled. Cissie still looked much the same as Rose remembered her from more than forty years back. Not that Cissie would allow any of them to know her age. Despite the stiletto heels kicked off under the table, and the false teeth in for the formality of the occasion, she was still the same no-nonsense Cissie. As pragmatically capable and as caring as ever.
Back from one of her frequent visits to Donegal and on her way home to Kerry tomorrow, the letter from Australia, which had come as a bolt out of the blue, burning a hole in her pocket. No more chickening out on that. No further stalling. She would show it to Rose. It was hig