Maeve Binchy

by The Quentins (Lit)

  "Before I decide what to eat, why don't you let me get some drinks in, Cath and ... er ... Jimmy, and then you'll tell me what it is you actually do."

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  "But you know what we do," Cath said simply. "You are our accountants. You must know what we do."

  "Well, you see, as you said, it's really Bob O"Neill who deals with you ... very big firm, lots of clients nowadays, many different aspects, the whole problem of expanding .. ." He looked at them helplessly.

  "Then why did you ask us to dinner?" Jimmy asked, tearing his bread roll apart as if it were a killer fish which he had to demolish first.

  "Bob couldn't make it himself this once. So he asked me to stand in at the last moment

  "And you never looked us up?" Jimmy said. "Lord, I wouldn't last one day if I didn't know about the people I was meeting."

  Derek looked miserable. Tm sorry, Mr Costello - I'm sorry, Jimmy. You're right. It was a courtesy and I did not have time. I didn't make time. I apologise. Can you tell me about yourselves? Now?"

  "What do you want to know, Derek?" Jimmy asked.

  Derek wondered what to ask them. "Do you have children?" he heard himself ask. He wondered why he had said it. Normally he never asked about people's families.

  "Do you?" Cath asked in a level voice.

  "Yes, just one son. He didn't follow me into the business, as I had hoped he would. I even had a room ready for him, but I'm afraid he didn't take to the accountancy business."

  "Imagine!" Cath said. "And did he do all right on his own?"

  "Very well. This is his restaurant, as it happens."

  "Well, you must be delighted with him," Cath said, her eyes far away.

  "And your children?" Derek asked. "Did they go into your business with you?" Again he didn't know why he wanted to know. He was not one for the personal question.

  "No, we went into it for them, really," Jimmy said.

  There was a silence. Derek knew that he must smile and be charming. Tomorrow he could rail at Bob O"Neill for landing him in all this so very ill-prepared. Today, he had to get these people on his side.

  "So? Your actual day-to-day work?" he said, his face nearly splitting with a smile.

  "Takes up about sixteen or seventeen hours of the twenty-four," Cath said, in a matter-of-fact way.

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  "Starting at six in the morning and ending at ten or eleven with a pint before closing time," Jimmy explained.

  "But surely you don't need to work that hard?" he said, appalled.

  "Oh, we do," Cath said.

  "But Bob O"Neill told me that you were very financially secure." Derek was bewildered. "Why do you work so hard?"

  "To forget," Cath said simply. "To take our minds off the children."

  "The children?" He looked from one to the other.

  "Bob didn't tell you?" They couldn't believe it.

  "No, he told me nothing." Derek was ashamed.

  "We had three children who died in a fire ten years ago. We nearly went mad, but someone told us that if we worked and worked it would make it better."

  Derek looked at them wordlessly.

  "So we did just that," Jimmy said.

  "Hour after hour, year after year," Cath said. It wasn't great, of course, but I think it would be worse if we hadn't. We've no way of knowing, but I think I would have been worse if there had been time to think."

  I suppose it gave you a comfortable lifestyle, anyway," Derek said. He didn't know how to sympathise. Better to look on the bright side.

  They looked at him, speechless.

  "What do you actually do for a living?" Derek asked eventually.

  "Fund-raise," Cath said. "Didn't you know? Doesn't Bob tell you anything at all?"

  "I'm beginning to think he doesn't," Derek said. "He told me you were very wealthy people."

  "Worth a dinner?" Jimmy said. " "Worth a dinner, yes." Derek felt ashamed.

  "And you didn't even know that we're leaving your firm?" Cath asked.

  "No, not until I met you. No. And of course nothing is definite yet . .."

  "He's an odd kind of partner then, Derek," Cath said.

  "I don't really know the whole story," Derek blustered a little.

  "We went to your firm because you were respectable and well thought of. If we could put your name on the bottom of our notepaper it gave us a bit of standing. People couldn't think we were just two yobbos .. ."

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  Tm sure they wouldn't have thought ..." Derek began to protest.

  Jimmy interrupted him: "Of course that's what people would say. Two poor, mad yobbos who can't see straight because of their own tragedy. Why should anyone give us money and believe that we'd spend it right? That's why we needed people like you. Or thought we did."

  "Oh, but you do ..." Derek began again.

  "No, we don't. We realised this. You see, we said to Bob that we thought the fees were a bit steep . . ." Cath said.

  "Not that we thought you should work for free or anything, just because our work is for charity .. ." Jimmy said.

  "But it turned out that he didn't really care at all about what we were doing. He just looked at a file and said there seemed to be a very healthy profit balance and he didn't know what we were complaining about." Cath was indignant.

  "He said there are sort of fixed rates an hour," Jimmy said.

  "Which there are, of course," Derek said. "But I imagine we could discuss ..."

  "No, that's not it. You see, he didn't even care that we are a charity," Cath said.

  "Oh, come come come ... of course he does. Of course the firm realised you were a charitable .. . organisation, but.. ." Derek said with a little laugh.

  "You didn't," she said simply.

  It was unanswerable.

  Brenda Brennan was at their table supervising the serving of a second starter. She also handed Cath an envelope.

  "Mrs Costello, everyone in the kitchen was so impressed when they heard you were both here, they made an immediate collection for your children's fund. Every single person contributed."

  "How did they know we were here?" Jimmy wondered.

  Tm afraid we recognised you from television. Believe me, Mr Barry was very discreet about you. Gave us no information at all about you, concealed your identity even." Her eyes were hard and cold.

  Derek remembered how he had described his guests. He flushed darkly to think about it.

  Jimmy got out a postcard and wrote a thank you note to the people in the kitchen. Cathy took a receipt book out of her big,

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  shabby handbag. They counted the money and sent a receipt to the kitchen staff as well.

  Two honest people maddened with grief over lost children, people who had now been ignored and patronised by his own accountancy firm. He longed to reach out and touch them and hold their hands, beg them to tell him what had happened the night their children died. He wanted to take out his chequebook and give them a donation that would stun them. He could have told them that not everyone has it easy. Take Derek's own life, for example. His wife had left him for a few years. She came back remote and distant. His son lived abroad and kept in very little contact. He felt he could talk to these odd people about it, and he would see they got not only vastly reduced fees, but that they also got a sponsorship as well.

  These thoughts welled up, but Derek was a man used to

  thinking long and carefully before he spoke, so he said nothing.

  And he missed the moment where Cath had seen some softness in

  his eyes, and where Jimmy had thought for a second or two that

  Derek might not be a bad old skin.

  Instead of speaking with his heart, Derek spoke with his

  accountant's mind.

  And, as the three of them left Quentins to go back to the firm where they would pick up their papers and he would face the wrath of Bob O"Neill, Derek saw people from other tables smile at them and even clasp their hands as the Costellos walked with him.

&
nbsp; Nobody greeted Derek Barry, partner in the accountancy firm and father of the proprietor of Quentins.

  The world had changed, and not for the better.

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  The Independent Streak

  Laura Lynch was forty when her husband left home. There had been no row. He just said it had been an empty, shallow, one-way relationship. She had not grown or developed within the marriage while he had and bettered himself.

  Laura had been so dependent, so lacking in get-up-and-go, so he could no longer stay in something that was making neither of them happy. And he left with a much younger colleague, who had no problem at all in getting up and going. He had been coldly and clinically fair in the division of property, and even given her some unasked for advice.

  "If I were you, Laura, I would develop an Independent Streak," he said quite seriously, as if he had not insisted that she be a stay at-home mother for their children.

  And in the twenty years since he left, Laura Lynch did indeed develop an independent streak. She needed one since it was hard work, turning what had been the family home into a guest house. The children were fifteen, fourteen and thirteen at the time of the break-up. All of them much more like their father in personality. Independent to a fault, Laura sometimes thought.

  It was never a house of hugs and spontaneous gestures. They showed no need for any emotional exchanges or confidences. So Laura learned to be independent. She learned not to be needy and never to allow herself to feel disappointed and let down over things.

  She had hoped that she might meet someone and marry again,

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  but it did not look likely. She managed her money well, and once she had sold the guest house to buy a small garden flat, she made a sort of social life with friends of her own choosing. There were bridge lessons, and theatre groups, and creative writing classes. No empty evenings to sit brooding and wondering why she heard so little from the two daughters and son and four grandchildren that she loved so much. She must indeed have been a very dull and dependent woman as her ex-husband had said.

  Amazing that she had not resented his cold parting words, but had actually heeded them instead.

  It was great that Mother had such an independent streak, they told each other. A lot of their friends had the most dreadful problems with clinging mothers, interfering mothers, critical mothers. They were indeed blessed with their own.

  The Lynch family often told each other this when they met once a month in Quentins for Saturday lunch. It was a tradition they enjoyed: Harry Lynch and his sisters, Lil and Kate. No spouses, just the three of them, twelve times a year they kept up with each other's lives, unlike many families they knew who just lost touch. Lil looked forward to these Saturdays. She got her hair done and went to the charity shop. Lil's husband, Bob, was careful about money. He said that anyone with a good eye could pick up the most marvellous stylish bargains there. And he was right, Lil said defensively, as she often did. Her sons had Saturday jobs, their father didn't believe in letting young people idle about.

  Kate loved the family lunch, too. Weekends were often lonely for her, since Charlie went back to his wife and children for the weekend to keep stability in the family. Charlie was so wonderful to her brother and sister: he admired Lil's crazy 19808 jackets and always asked about Harry's endless garden work.

  Harry enjoyed the lunch meeting. He found Lil's Bob rather trying, telling him how to save money on phone calls, and there was something phoney about Kate's Charlie, who appeared to be running two establishments quite cheerfully. Nice to see his two sisters on their own, and tell them about the new pergola and how well the azaleas had done when repotted. He would talk too about Jan and the girls, who always spent Saturdays at the gym and didn't know where Harry had his lunch or even if he had his lunch.

  Brenda Brennan wondered how long they had been coming in,

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  these Lynches. Must be nearly fifteen years now, or was it more? From time to time she had seen Kate in here with that Charlie, the man about town who usually brought his wife here for anniversaries or birthdays. Still, people made their own arrangements, Brenda shrugged - as she often did about the way her customers lived their lives. She knew that Lil was married to a man who had a very good job.

  Bob often brought big groups to Quentins for very pricey meals. He always checked and sometimes queried the bill. Maybe that's why his wife dressed in other people's cast-offs. Harry Lynch was a dull bank clerk, whose eyes only lit up when he talked to her about growing vegetables. It was fairly easy for Brenda to talk about vegetables, since Quentins prided themselves on their homegrown organic produce. But how did people in the bank react, she wondered. But this was not her business.

  Her husband said that she got far too involved in people's lives. "Just serve them, Brenda," Patrick would plead.

  But there was no life in that sort of thing, and anyway, part of Quentins" success was due to the fact that she remembered who people were and all about them. She knew that the Lynch family always chose pasta, so she came armed with information about the really good pesto. Contained pine nuts of course, just in case anyone was allergic, but a very distinctive flavour. They would have one glass of house wine each, and Kate would stay on to read her paper and have a second and third glass on her own. There was not much that escaped Brenda.

  I see that there's a booking for twelve, under the name of Lynch, for Mother's Day. Is that your family?" Brenda asked brightly. The moment she had asked she regretted it. They were bewildered, looking at each other in surprise.

  "Mother's Day. No, that's not us. We usually just give Jan a bunch of flowers from the garden," Harry said.

  "My boys wouldn't be able to afford this .. . and Bob, well, he doesn't like big gatherings," Lil said.

  "A lot of these Mother's Days and other things are just purely commercial," Kate said with her brow darkening. Charlie's wife would undoubtedly get the full works.

  Brenda recovered herself. "You're so right, Kate, it only benefits us and the florists and of course the card manufacturers. Still, we are happy to see it! That's commercialism for you, of course!" She laughed easily and moved back to the kitchen, mopping her brow.

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  "Sometimes, not all the time, Patrick, but sometimes I think you're right about not getting involved in their lives," she said ruefully.

  "What have you said now?" he laughed affectionately.

  "I just thought that the Lynches at table nine might have booked to take their mother out for lunch a week from tomorrow, but the thought had never crossed their little minds."

  "We don't need any more bookings. We couldn't cope with them. We're full." Patrick was mystified.

  "That's not the point. They have a mother, they haven't booked her in anywhere at all."

  "Leave it alone, Brenda," Patrick said, shaking a spoon at her.

  "Do you think she might have meant had we booked for Mother?" Kate asked.

  "But we never did anything like that. Mother wouldn't have expected it. Nor wanted it," Harry said. He would have to do a lot of persuading to get Jan and the girls to go along with such a scheme. Sundays were for long healthy walks, not for sitting down and ingesting calories.

  "And even if we were to ask Mother out to lunch, it couldn't be a place like this," Kate said. Kate had a particular distaste for those kinds of wives and mothers who wanted a silly expensive fuss made over them, just to reinforce their status.

  "And she's so independent," Lil said. "She's always doing something whenever you want to see her."

  "Yes, I suppose so," Kate said.

  I see her very often," Harry protested. "We have coffee quite a lot, as a matter of fact."

  "Only because she goes to the garden centre on late-night opening to meet you there," Kate said.

  There was a silence. Harry seemed put out. "At least I do see her, and as Lil said, she
has a fiercely independent streak. When do you see her?"

  I often ring her and suggest that we go to the cinema on the spur of the moment. Half the time she's doing something else," Kate said. She knew that the others would realise that she only rang her mother on the nights when Charlie was unexpectedly unable to meet her.

  "It's a long way for her to get into town to meet you," Lil said.

  "So what do you do for her, Lil?" Kate asked, stung.

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  Lil paused to think. "When we go to the market and get vegetables in bulk, we often drop in. You can only buy things in huge quantities, and this way it works out cheaper for Mother, you know ..." Her voice trailed away.

  "She's got loads of friends," Harry said defensively.

  "And would hate waste." Lil was very definite on this.

  "I suppose she would consider it a waste?" Kate had done the unforgivable. She had introduced some doubt about Mother's independent streak, the one solid pillar that had given them all the freedom to get on with their slightly complicated lives without considering the needs of a sixty-year-old woman, whose husband had left her two decades previously.

  Lil and Harry were uncomfortable. Kate was sorry she had spoken. Their pleasant lunch was turning to ashes on them and it was all her fault. Kate needed her brother and sister rather more than they needed her. After all, they had the fairly unsatisfactory Bob and Jan, plus, of course, their children. Kate had nothing but the part-time attention of Charlie.