Flamingo S.
4 total works
Helen has retreated to the remote north-west coast of Ireland to paint the sea and the shore, and to be alone with her past.
English war hero Roger Hawthorne has settled in the neglected railway station house nearby. Mutilated and sick at heart, with the help of a young lad he has begun painstakingly to restore the derelict branch line station. Soon Roger and Helen form a bond which, over gramophone music, dancing and champagne, deepens into love. But Helen, enjoying her first taste of happiness in years, is to learn just how brutally fleeting it can be.
Mr Prendergast, an elderly Anglo-Irishman, is living out his last years in the decaying splendour of his family mansion. As his mind wanders through the gloom he finds it peopled with memories of his neglected wife, his pale shadow of a father, his icily glamorous mother and Alexander, the son she so jealously loved, killed in the First World War.
With only his ill-tempered alcoholic gardener left to attend to him, Mr Prendergast is content to pass his days in such ghostly company. Until young Diarmid arrives, keen-eyed and carrot-haired, to disperse the gathering darkness with curiosity, and the promise of friendship.
Once, the villagers would tip their hats respectfully when the McMahons drove out through the ornate iron gates at the end of the drive. But that was back in the days when the Major's family were prosperous. Now the estate is slipping into peaceful decay - and so, it seems, is the Major, its last occupant.
Then Minnie, the Major's rebellious niece, returns home. She disrupts his tranquillity, forming surprising friendships with the feckless Kelly family. For together, Minnie and Kevin Kelly have hatched a plan to raise badly needed money - a plan which involves the gates themselves...