The Lake Read Free Page A

She’d die before asking Mrs. Byrne to cut layers into her hair. As if Mrs. Byrne would even know what that meant. And she shuddered at the idea of bringing the picture with her to the salon. They’d have a great laugh. That Peggy with her big ideas. Food in the bar. Layers in her hair. Whatever next?
    Peggy sighed at her reflection; mottled and tarnished in the old mirror. Sure what was the point, anyway? She might have good hair, but her pale skin and rosy cheeks were nowhere to be found on the pages of her magazine. And she’d have to lose two stone to be anywhere near as skinny as those girls. Like Carla. Carla could wear miniskirts and little dresses. Carla had legs like stilts. But she doesn’t have my hair, Peggy thought meanly.
    She glanced at the clock on the wall. A quarter past three. She would be here soon. Peggy looked back at her own reflection, processing her feelings. Right now, she was looking forward to her sister’s arrival. The week was quiet with only Jerome’s unpredictable appearances to bring life to the place. But she knew it wouldn’t last. It wouldn’t be long before she’d hear Carla’s little car pull up outside, and the neighbour’s dog would bark, and Carla would bark back at it. She’d come through and into the bar, stooping a little at the archway, and they’d smile at each other. And it would be all downhill from there. No matter how sincere Peggy’s sisterly love was for Carla, she knew that by Monday morning there would be no sound more pleasing to her than that of her sister’s car pulling away on its early return journey to Wexford.
    But then, she also knew that her hard-wired sibling sensibilities would contrive to rebuild an eager anticipation of her sister’s return the following Friday. And then Carla would appear, and the cycle would repeat itself. Peggy had long thought that, were she and Carla mere school friends, they would have parted company years ago. They were simply incompatible. And yet, every week, she fooled herself into thinking that things might be different.
    The silence of the bar was suddenly broken by the telephone’s ring. Just as she reached to answer it, Peggy heard a car on the gravel outside. She looked at the clock again. Carla was early.
    ‘Angler’s Rest? Hello?’
    ‘Peggy? Is that you? ’Tis Bernie here.’
    ‘Hello Mrs. O’Shea.’ Peggy instinctively pushed the phone closer to her ear. It was unlike Bernie O’Shea to pay for a phone call when she could send Enda over on foot with a message. ‘Everything all right?’
    ‘Yes, yes. I will be having Detective Ryan from Dublin staying with me tonight, and I wanted to check that you would be serving food this evening. I can of course prepare something for him here, but it would have to be cold. It’s bridge night at the Corcoran’s. And who knows what time he will come in from the lake, or whatever it is he will be doing.’ Bernie O’Shea’s game of bridge was clearly not going to be disrupted, even for a dead body. ‘Can I direct him to you? Will you look after him?’
    ‘Of course, Mrs. O’Shea.’ Peggy waved at Carla who had stalked into the room, and dropped her bag against the wall. Carla stuck her tongue out at the phone when she heard the name. Her low opinion of Mrs. O’Shea had been honed during the summer of 1970 when she and Enda O’Shea Junior were secretly courting. At least, until such time as Mrs. O’Shea had caught them fumbling in one of her guest bedrooms.
    Peggy glared at her sister. ‘I’ll be sure to feed him, Mrs. O’Shea. Thank you for the referral.’
    Carla snorted as she stooped to grab a Coke bottle from the shelf behind her.
    Peggy replaced the receiver. ‘What?’ She looked at Carla. They were already on their slippery slope and she wasn’t in the bar thirty seconds.
    ‘Referral?’ Carla sniggered, and took a swig from the bottle.
    ‘What about it?’ Peggy lifted a clean glass from a shelf and placed it on the counter.
    Carla ignored