by Maeve Binchy
“You're a very tolerant young man,” Clara said approvingly, and they both went back to work.
Barbara and Fiona had been to the hairdresser's during their lunch hour. When Declan saw them at the staff meeting that afternoon he longed desperately to curl his fingers around the little ringlets beside Fiona's ears. He pulled himself together sharply. He must be going mad. He cleared his throat three times before he felt confident enough to wish them happy hunting at the gala tonight.
“We'll hear all about it on Monday,” he said, hoping that the yearning wasn't obvious in his voice. She must not know how desperately he wanted her not to go.
“I'll be able to report firsthand,” Tim said. “I'll be working there tonight and I'll have chapter and verse about what went on.”
Declan wondered for one mad moment if he could beg Tim to ensure that Fiona came home early, safely and alone.
“So can I report.” Ania laughed. “I will be taking in the coats there.” Barbara and Fiona were delighted with this news and jumped up and down with excitement.
“Maybe you'll meet someone too,” Barbara said.
“Not in the cloakroom, I fear.” Ania was realistic.
Somehow Declan got through the rest of the day. With a heavy heart he went out to join Clara at her car.
“Hilary had to cancel at the last moment. She's got some crisis to do with her mother, but let's you and I go anyway,” Clara said. They folded his bicycle away and she drove them to a smart wine bar.
• • •
“This is very kind of you,” Declan said, trying to drag his attention to this pleasant woman sitting opposite him.
“No, on the contrary, I am grateful to have a nice person to talk to on a Friday evening rather than going home to an empty house,” she said.
Clara ordered a fizzy water, followed by one glass of white wine, then another fizzy water. Declan had three glasses of claret. Clara told him of her daughters, Adi and Linda, of Adi's difficult boyfriend and Lindas difficult lifestyle. She told Declan how she now had rules in the house, for their own good as well as hers. They must realize that they could not walk over people forever.
“I don't expect you walk over your parents, Declan,” she said unexpectedly.
“I have probably taken all their sacrifices for me very much for granted,” he admitted. “I think we all do. Did you?”
And there she was again, talking away about her remote father who never seemed at all interested, her difficult, disappointed mother who snapped out a series of criticisms rather than having a conversation.
“What one word would you use to describe her?” Declan asked.
“Regretful. That's the word. She always regrets something. Like that nobody has any manners anymore, or how expensive everything has become, or that I married Alan or that I left Alan, that Adi has a boyfriend and Linda doesn't have a boyfriend. Whatever state there is, it's wrong. I didn't realize it before.” She looked surprised.
“Maybe I should be a psychiatrist,” Declan joked.
“Don't you dare. You're just the kind of GP we used to read about but never met. Stick at it, Declan.”
“I will. I wish I weren't so dull and plodding, though.”
“I don't think of you at all like that. You've helped a lot of patients very significantly in under a week. You actually like people and it shows. What's dull and plodding about being that sort of person?” She sounded sincere.
“Women prefer rats, bounders, merciless people.” He kept it light.
“Yeah, they do for five minutes, but not when they grow up.”
“I hope you're right. I'm not much good in the merciless stakes.”
“I'm right. Trust me.”
“Let me get you one for the road,” he offered.
“No, Dr. Carroll, and you remember this—never encourage a driver to have a drink.”
“I forgot,” he said, shamefaced.
“Okay. And I think after all that claret I shouldn't leave you in charge of a bicycle. I'll drive you home.”
On the way back he saw his mother locking up the launderette. Molly had two late-evening shifts and the money was still going to a fund to buy a place in a practice for her son.
“That's my mam,” he said. “Can we give her a lift home?” And Declan sat in the car while his mother told Clara Casey, his boss, what a wonderful cardiologist he was and how he was destined for great things.
On Monday, while Declan was examining Bobby Walsh, he asked about his painting. Did he prefer watercolors or oil? Apparently Bobby Walsh liked watercolors.
“Why is that?” Declan asked.
Lar was listening from the next cubicle. “You should train your mind to learn something new all the time,” he said reprovingly. “Even that young Fiona, and she's only a brainless little nurse, she manages to get new facts into her head all the time.”
Declan burned with resentment about Fiona being dismissed as a brainless little nurse. But he didn't show it. It was early in the day. Too early to get upset. Soon, only too soon, he would hear how they had fared at the charity function.
“Wonder how the girls got on at that do,” he said to Bobby Walsh as he took the man's blood pressure.
“My wife was there. She said the place was swimming in alcohol,” Bobby Walsh said, glad to be of service.
Declan moved on to Jimmy O'Brien, a small, foxy man from the west of Ireland. He had come up to Dublin for a soccer match, had a heart attack and been taken into St. Brigid's. They had asked him to have follow-up treatment when he was discharged. Jimmy was a very shy private person who preferred to come the whole way across the country to attend this clinic rather than let any of his neighbors get to hear that he had heart problems. Declan could hear Fiona two cubicles away talking to Kitty Reilly
“Well, Kitty, you're the sharp one. I'll have to watch out for my job here. You know more about your medication than I do. Now I imagine the doctor will want to talk to you about that breathless-ness, but it went when you took the right tablet, didn't it?”
“I had a word with Padre Pio as well. It wasn't just the tablets.”
“No, Kitty, it never is. There are so many other factors out there.” Fiona was the soul of diplomacy.
Declan tried to learn something from her tone. Had she spent the weekend in some playboy's penthouse? Had it all been a washout? Impossible to guess. Kitty was in full flight.
“Still, I'll listen to that nice young doctor with the ginger head on him. Is he a family man, would you say?”
“Oh, bound to be,” Fiona said. “The nice doctors always are. Married to ruthless shrews with spectacles and research projects.”
Declan's face broke into a huge smile. She thought he was one of the nice doctors, she thought he was married. Ah, dear Lord, there might be a hope for him still.
At lunchtime he asked her out. Declan Carroll, who had never asked a girl out properly on a date because there was never enough money or time or confidence.
“Would you like to come out and have dinner with me one night this week?” It sounded quite a normal thing for a person to say, yet it echoed in his ears as if he were in some huge cavern. Maybe she would laugh and tell him to have some sense. Maybe she would say no, that she had a new relationship but thanks all the same.
“That would be great,” she said and sounded as if she meant it.
“Where would you like to go?”
“Take me somewhere you like,” Fiona said.
Declan's mind went blank. Where did he like? He didn't know anywhere. He went home to his mother's kitchen table for supper in the evening. How sad was that? He had seen an article in one of the papers recently about a place called Quentins. It was “über elegant,” they said. Über? Over elegant? Maybe that meant pretentious. Still, it was the only place he could think of.
“Quentins?” he suggested, amazed that his voice sounded normal. In his own ears it felt like a screech.
“Gosh,” Fiona said, impressed.
“That ok
ay, then?” He must sound casual.
“And there's no Mrs. Declan, is there?” she asked.
“No. No, there'll be just the two of us,” he stammered.
“I didn't think you'd be inviting her to dinner,” Fiona said.
“No, no, of course not. I mean there isn't one, a Mrs. Declan. Lord, no.”
“Good,” said Fiona and went off to sort out some blood test results that should have gone to the hospital but had turned up here instead.
Declan cycled home that day on a route that took him past Quentins. It looked very imposing. Declan wondered was he quite mad to have suggested this place. With any luck they might be full and he could honestly tell Fiona that he had tried. But no, when he called them on his mobile from round the corner it turned out that they could easily find a table for two. So he booked it, with a very heavy heart. Perhaps he should go in and examine it, give himself some hint of the familiarity he had claimed with the place. He pushed the door open. It was quite busy. There was a good-value Early Bird dinner there for people on their way to the theater.
A handsome middle-aged woman, who seemed very much in charge, approached him; she was about to find him a table, but Molly Carroll's shepherd's pie would be shortly on the table at home.
“No, excuse me, I was just coming to have a look. You see, I have never been here before, but I have invited someone to dinner He realized that he sounded like a madman coming in from the street. This woman would probably ask him to leave and never allow him to be readmitted. What a fool he had been to come here and see the lay of the land. But she seemed to accept his behavior as normal.
“Of course you want to have a look at the place. Let me take you on a quick tour. I'm Brenda Brennan, by the way; my husband, Patrick, is the chef here. We'd be delighted to show you around.”
“I'm Declan Carroll,” he said, hardly daring to believe that he had been reprieved.
“Yes, of course, Mr. Carroll, you rang a few moments ago. Let me show you the table I had in mind for you.” Dazed, he followed her from the oyster bar, with all its crushed ice, to the dessert display, with its fruit cascades tumbling from little pillars. She pointed out the rest rooms, and took him into the kitchen to meet Patrick and his brother with the odd name of Blouse. Dazed by it all, he thanked her and said how much he was looking forward to Thursday.
“You are very kind, Mrs. Brennan, to take me on this tour. I am afraid that I'm not what you'd call experienced at all this fine dining.”
“Few of us are, Mr. Carroll, but even fewer have the sense to admit it. Is this a big occasion on Thursday?”
“It is for me. I have asked a most attractive girl out for the first time. I hope it will be a success.”
“We'll do our best to make sure it is.” Brenda Brennan saw him off at the door as if he was a regular and honored client. She saw him getting on his bicycle and heading off happily into the traffic.
“Very nice young fellow,” she said to Patrick in the kitchen.
“Is he a doctor, by any chance?” Patrick asked.
“Don't think so. He'd have said, they always do. Anyway, he doesn't have the sort of overconfidence the medics have. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, remember, Judy Murphy said there was a young redheaded doctor on a bike who was walking the awful hounds for her? Could be the same guy.”
“I'd say Dublin is full of them,” Brenda said and they got on with the evening ahead, but she thought she might check with Judy next time she saw her.
Declan sat down to his supper. Molly watched anxiously as he attacked the huge mound of food.
“Tell me things that happened today” she begged.
It wasn't much to ask. Not after a lifetime of denying herself everything so that he could get this far. But tonight Declan didn't feel able to fill the room with aimless prattle about his day as the white-coated Medicine Man. He answered a few questions and seemed restless.
“Mush, mush, mush,” his father said unexpectedly.
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“I was wondering do you and your team of huskies want to walk over and meet me at the pub later for a pint? That's what you say when you're driving a dog sled.”
“Aw, Paddy, don't be bringing the boy into awful shabby pubs like that. It's hotel lounges and wine bars for our Declan from now on at least.”
Declan looked at them helplessly. He could never let either of them know that he intended to spend what his father would take nearly a week to earn on one meal in Quentins on Thursday night and that he had been in there examining the native oysters and the Pacific variety so that he would be able to make an informed choice when the time came.
If he only knew what had happened last Friday. He didn't like to ask either Barbara or Fiona in case it made him sound like an old woman. Maybe Ania would tell him. Or Tim, who had been doing security for the function.
Ania said she didn't have a good time.
“Bobby's wife was there, very bad-temper, and I say hello to her by name. So stupid. She was very angry, she said, ‘My goodness, the Poles are everywhere these days, they're taking over the country’”
“God, what a terrible woman, Ania. I hope you don't meet many like that.” Declan was sympathetic, but he still ached to know more. “Did Fiona and Barbara have a good time?”
“No, I don't think so. No, I know they did not. There was something that was badly understood by two sides. What do you call that?”
“A misunderstanding?” Declan suggested.
“Yes, I think that was it. A serious misunderstanding.” But he heard no more.
When he found Tim, he learned that there was a very snorty crowd there, lots of drugs. He had gone into the gents’ at one stage and saw a whole stack laid out for people to buy as if it was an open market.
“What did you do? You were meant to be security.” Declan thought that other people had very complicated lives.
“I went to the top security guy and he told me to shut my face and look the other way. So I did, Declan. I'm not a one-man mission to clean up the country.”
“And Fiona and Barbara? Did they … I mean, were they …?”
“No, they hadn't anything to do with anything. They left early. They asked me to get them a taxi, in fact.”
“Because of the drugs?”
“No, because the organizer thought they were party girls. That's what he had expected, wanted, ordered when he gave them the tickets. Jesus, what a night.”
Declan felt insanely cheered by this. It had all been all right. He breathed deeply, and that night the dogs seemed to sense that he was more at peace with himself than he had been before.
On Thursday, the morning of the date, Declan woke excited. Everything about this day was going to go well. He would be positive and strong from the moment he got up.
He began at breakfast. “I won't be home for supper tonight, Mam,” he said.
“Who'll walk those animals, then?” Molly asked to cover her disappointment.
“Judy Murphy is out of hospital today and Dad can take Dimples to the pub.”
“And what are you doing that means you can't come home for your tea?” Molly wasn't letting it go.
Declan had thought about this for a while. If he lied and said there was a meeting, he was only putting off the day when he had to tell them that he had found a girl. There was nothing odd or unnatural about it. In fact it had been unnatural for a man of twenty-six not to have gone out on dates regularly.
“I'm meeting a girl from work. We're going out for a meal.”
“A girl from work,” his mother said grimly.
“Yes, Fiona Ryan. She's a cardiology nurse in the clinic.”
“A nurse,” Molly repeated.
“And is she a nice girl, Declan?” Paddy asked.
“Very nice.” He knew he sounded clipped, but it had to be done.
“And where are you going?” Molly was taking no prisoners on this one.
“Oh, somewhere around. We're not fussy” he li
ed, hoping it didn't sound as unlikely as it sounded to him.
“Well, I hope you have a nice time. I have to go. Some of us have work to do.” Molly went away, her stiff little body showing the intense disappointment and hurt that she was being relegated to very much second best.
Fiona said that she would meet him at the restaurant. Declan wondered should he have suggested that he call for her in a taxi. Was he being cheapskate? But Fiona said that the bus went straight to the door of Quentins from her flat. “It's not often they get a customer coming off the bus,” she had said.
“Well, they got me getting off a bike yesterday,” he said and could have killed himself.
“You go to Quentins twice in one week!” Fiona's eyes were round with amazement.
“No, no. I just went in to book.” He was shamefaced.
“I'm just dying for it,” Fiona said with the same enthusiasm that she had been dying for a coffee break, or lunch, or something on television, or last week the big function that had never been mentioned since.
How great to live life at such a high level of excitement, Declan thought. He hoped that he wouldn't be too dull for her. Too plodding. But then, she didn't have to go out with him.
Somehow he got through the day. Declan had never known time to drag before, but this day it did. He wondered did Fiona feel even one little bit of anxiety about the evening ahead?
He was waiting outside the door of Quentins when she got off the bus. He had never seen her dressed up before, only in the white-and-black hospital outfit. She wore a sparkling sequin-covered jacket over a rose silk dress. She looked stunning.
Brenda Brennan welcomed them in as warmly as if they had been captains of industry, ambassadors or international politicians. She offered them a glass of Champagne on the house and wished them a pleasant evening.
“How did she get to be like that?” Fiona whispered in wonder.
“Women are better at it,” Declan said admiringly.
“Not all women. I wouldn't be able to do it in a million years.”
“She wouldn't be able to do what you do every day. You're terrific with people.” He was full of genuine admiration.
