by Maeve Binchy
Linda said she worked in a record shop and told him where it was.
“They're terrific,” Nick said. “They're starting a whole new jazz section.”
“And I'm in charge of it,” Linda said proudly.
“Never!” He was very impressed.
“Yes, I have a rack of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis already, and they've given me funds to get more.”
“Will you have Artie Shaw,” he asked, “and Benny Goodman?”
“Sure I will. I was going to get going with jazz women. You know, Billie Holiday, Ella …?”
“And Lena!” he cried. “You'll have lots of Lena Horne.”
“Oh yes, yes. My favorite, Lena is. More than you know.”
“Mine is At Long Last Love,’” Nick said.
The guests were all leaving. Clara and Hilary, the two ostensibly drunken mothers, were peeping around the door.
Linda and Nick were oblivious to it all.
All the scheming ladies had done was to speed it up a little for them. And now they must stand back and hold their breath and never ever, as long as they lived, admit this little plan to either of the young jazz fans who stood in their own world in the middle of Johnny's exercise room.
Chapter Ten
Fiona was invited to come to supper in St. Jarlath's Crescent. The twins wanted to cook a Greek meal and they had asked Molly if she'd mind if they used her kitchen.
“And did she?” asked Fiona, knowing how proud Molly Carroll was of her cooking skills, her roasts and her casseroles.
“Apparently she's delighted,” said Declan. “She's talking meatballs and kebabs with them as if she grew up on a Greek island.”
“She's one dote, your mother,” Fiona said affectionately.
“You made her what she is now. When I went to the hospital she was so difficult. I dreaded you ever having to meet her. Now you're the best of pals.”
“Well, why wouldn't we be? Aren't we both mad about you?”
“So, when do you think we should give my mam a day out?”
“She has plenty of days out,” Fiona said. “Weren't we up at the zoo, the pair of us, last week? She told me it had been years since she was there and I loved it too.”
“You know full well what I mean,” Declan said.
“Oh, a wedding day!” Fiona said, with a laugh.
“Yes, sweetheart, a wedding day …”
“Haven't we all the time in the world to arrange that?” Fiona said. “Would Wednesday be okay?”
“To get married?” He looked up gleefully.
“To go to supper with the twins at your house, you eejit.”
Bobby Walsh told Declan that he and his wife were having a ruby wedding party That was forty years married. He sighed with pleasure about it, though Declan couldn't see why That sharp-tongued, restless, impatient Rosemary! Imagine being married to her for four decades. But maybe she hadn't seemed like that when they started out.
“So, we're having about seventy people to the house and I was wondering, would you and Fiona like to join us?”
Declan was taken aback. “Well, that's very nice of you, Bobby, but you don't want to be bringing dreary old doctors and nurses in on top of all your friends.”
“On the contrary. I owe you everything. I wouldn't be here planning to celebrate if it hadn't been for you all. And there was a bit of a misunderstanding between Rosemary and Clara.”
“Ah, yes!” Declan looked calm and sympathetic. He had heard all about the “misunderstanding” from Clara. It had, in fact, been a shouted attack from Rosemary—but better let sleeping dogs lie there, he thought to himself.
“So, it's on the twenty-first, but I'll send you a proper invitation. That's really great, now. I'm so happy you'll be there.”
And indeed he sounded happy, Declan thought.
“Rosemary with you today?” he asked, as they completed the blood tests and the chart filling.
“No. She's out talking to caterers. Carl brought me. He has a day off from the school.”
“He's a great son. You must be delighted with him!” Declan said.
“Yes, he is, he's a great boy and he loves that teaching job. Of course Rosemary thinks it's not nearly good enough for him, tells everyone he's doing an M.A., but there'll be white blackbirds before that lad goes back to university. He'll go on at that school until he's drawing his pension.”
“Great to have found something which makes you happy,” Declan said, as he helped Bobby on with his coat.
“If he finds as good a woman as I did, then he'll be a lucky man,” Bobby said.
Privately, Declan hoped that young Carl would find a much better woman than Rosemary, but his face showed nothing of this.
“We'd been waiting for him for over ten years. We'd almost given up hope. And then he arrived.” Bobby was so good-natured and cheerful about everything, including his bad-tempered wife. It was fortunate that the boy they had waited so long for had inherited most of his father's characteristics rather than his mother's.
“Fiona will be thrilled,” Declan said, as he shook Bobby's hand.
“And when are you two …?” Bobby began.
“Don't ask,” Declan whispered. “It's like not mentioning the war—everything functions fine if you don't start looking for a date for the Big Day or whatever. If you do, all hell breaks loose.”
“You're a wise man, Declan,” Bobby said. “It will all turn out absolutely fine. Believe me.”
Declan found it hard to believe anything from a man who was pleased to be married to Rosemary for forty years, but he smiled his thanks, as he did so often. It was easier than gut-wrenching confrontation. Sometimes he wondered, might he be a bit dull?
Ania knew that Clara and Hilary had a secret, but she didn't know what it was. Sometimes they giggled like schoolgirls. Other times they sat, heads together, making lists. But they never told her. She didn't mind. She hadn't told them all about Marek showing up and how she had got over him in just one minute, standing there in that restaurant when he was assuming she would dance naked for men to make him money.
Maybe it was about Hilary's son and Clara's daughter, who had got together at the big reception. That had been a lovely night, Ania remembered wistfully. Carl had admired how well she looked. He had said her English was coming on by leaps and bounds, and he had laughed at her fondly when she paused to write down leaps and bounds. It was a lovely phrase, reminded you of a hare in the grass, leaping and bounding ahead.
He had even kissed her on the nose as he left.
“You are so sweet, Ania, and so clever. I wish I had students like you in my class.”
“I am not clever, Carl. Truly I am not.”
“Excuse me. From where I stand you are very clever. And look, you can turn your hand to anything.”
“That's only because I need to work hard to make money. I just have to try many things.”
“This is what I mean. One moment you're running a laundry, the next you're running this clinic …”
“I would not say that! Working here, yes.”
“I have listened to you all evening. You're such a good ambassador for the work that is done here. Then you work in a jeweler's—”
“I just clean there!”
“And in that international center. And you mind children. And you go round to people's houses and clear up after their dinner parties.”
“That was a good idea. I thought of that myself.” Ania's eyes were shining. “It is nice for the hostess that she can go to bed and come down to a nice clean kitchen.”
“Yes, but when do you sleep, Ania? How many hours are there in the day for you?”
“Not enough,” she had said seriously. “I would need forty hours in the day if I were to earn enough to give my mother the life she deserves.”
“Maybe she just wants you to be happy,” he had said. He wouldn't say all that unless he liked her a little. Would he?
Father Brian Flynn was having what he thought was an exha
usting run with his friend Johnny, who thought it was a casual walk. They had taken the little DART train that went south from Dublin, out to Killiney on the coast, and then they climbed what Father Brian thought was a mountain and Johnny said was a slight incline and looked down over Dun Laoghaire harbor, where the boats came in from England and the rich yachtsmen moored their craft; then they descended from the mountain, or incline, to Dalkey and drank two pints in a friendly pub, after which they took the DART back to Dublin.
Brian was knocked out by it. Johnny, who must have had different muscles and sinews, felt no pain at all.
They sat in Dalkey and discussed the world. Brian was having the odd problem about financing the center. He had been told to make it self-funding. How could he do that? He'd already roped all his friends in to paint the place. He'd asked Ania to make curtains and tablecloths for him. He couldn't increase the prices they charged—these young people sent so much money home already they had barely anything left to live on.
If only there was a way of making money out of the premises. It was a big hall with a few little rooms off it where people held meetings. They served tea, coffee and soup and sandwiches in the hall. Attached to it was a small chapel. After Mass on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, Brian welcomed the various young Europeans, still a little lost in the big city and glad to have a place for coffee and a chat. He couldn't charge them high prices to make the place self-funding.
“Can you do a dance or a nightclub or something?” Johnny suggested.
“Aw, come on, Johnny. It hardly goes with the wholesome image, does it?”
“I didn't mean a strip club.” Johnny was offended.
“No, I know you didn't, but judging by what nearly knocks my eyes out going along that street, we wouldn't be out of place.”
“There must be something,” Johnny said, refusing to be beaten.
“Lord, it was nearly easier back in Rossmore, where people would say that we should all go up to the holy well and ask St. Ann what to do.”
“But I thought you left to get away from all that.” Johnny was puzzled.
“I did, but like everyone, I'm beginning to wonder was there something in it? They all came back from that mad well delighted with themselves.”
“She told them what to do?”
“She planted the seeds in their heads, apparently. Don't get me started.”
“And who's looking after them all now?”
“Father Tomasz. Still the nicest man that ever wore shoe leather. Mad about the bloody well. It's going stronger than ever. People want to get married there and all!” Brian stopped talking. “God Almighty!” he said suddenly.
“What is it?” Johnny thought something was wrong.
“God—that's the solution. We can have weddings at the center. I'll marry them first in the chapel, or Tomasz can come up and do the Polish ones, and then we give them a wedding breakfast in the hall. What a fantastic bloody idea!”
Clara was holding her breath about Linda. She had been to Nick's club twice. He had been to her record shop almost every day. He had said she was a genius, and what's more he had told the boss that he was mad not to take her on full-time.
Linda had thought about it for six minutes and said that was fine with her. A proper salary and a budget for promotion.
“What will you promote?” the boss had asked her, not unreasonably.
“Your store and its fine support for Irish or visiting jazz artists. You could even have a happy hour on Thursdays at late opening, get somebody to play, bring in the punters.”
The boss listened with interest. He had thought she was a silly, brainless blonde with long legs who would stay for three weeks. Now she was planning on running an empire.
Hilary was also holding her breath. Nick had got a haircut. He had smartened himself up considerably. He had asked Hilary did she know of any hall he could rent, a place to give a music class. Lovely as home was, it wasn't the place to hold a big class with twenty people. He had been talking to somebody who had said it made more sense to teach twenty kids four chords all at the same time for a series of six Saturdays at an agreed fee. Somebody had also told him that he was nearly thirty and it was time he made people aware of how good he was. Since Hilary had been telling him the same thing for twenty years, she gasped in disbelief to think that somebody—who happened to be Claras daughter—had been able to make him listen.
Linda had stopped wearing those ludicrously short skirts and high boots. Nick had bought a sweater that wasn't full of holes with threads running loose. Linda didn't talk much about Nick at home. Nick didn't speak of her to his mother. But at the heart clinic two middle-aged women talked about them all the time and were once even seen doing a little dance around Clara's desk.
On the Wednesday of the Greek feast, the twins came round early to Molly Carroll's.
“A lot of it is in the presentation …” Maud began.
“The way you lay the dishes out,” Simon added.
“We brought these little pottery plates …”
“So we can display the meze …”
“And we are giving the plates to Fiona …”
“And you and Declan too …”
Molly felt dizzy listening to them. You had to turn your head left and right as if you were watching a tennis match. But they were completely delightful and chattered on as if she was their oldest friend.
Their conversation was filled with people she had never heard of: this Vonni, and Andreas, and Andreas's brother, Yorghis, and the local doctor, Dr. Leros, who had taken bits of broken plate out of Simon's feet when he had danced too enthusiastically in a restaurant. And all the time they talked they were decorating the table with bowls of olives, flat pita bread, plates of hummus and taramasalata and things like squid that Molly wondered if she would ever be able to eat.
They had made what looked like an ordinary shepherd's pie but called it moussaka and filled it with evil-looking purple vegetables; a Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumber and feta cheese stood on the sideboard and a dessert that looked like sheets of brown paper with almonds and honey.
Molly sighed. She could have done such a good joint—nice normal food—not all these silly little bowls. Paddy would have given her the best loin of lamb or rib of beef from the butchery department where he worked. But Simon and Maud had become obsessed with the celebration, and Muttie, who was some kind of relation to them, was important in Paddy's life.
Molly was getting better about sitting back and letting other people get on with things. It hadn't been easy. For years she had been running this house herself as well as working in the launderette. Every morning she had ironed one shirt for Paddy, one for Declan. She had been home to welcome them with their supper. But everything had changed.
Declan spent most of his free time with Fiona now. And she was such a good girl, too. Totally mad about Declan, of course, and good for him too. He had much more confidence these days. And Fiona made everyone laugh. She went off with Paddy and Muttie and drank pints in their pub; she had taken Molly herself off to the zoo for a great day and Fiona had talked to everyone and they spent hours looking at the exotic birds and went nowhere near the lions.
So, if Fiona liked all this greasy food served in tiny dishes, then why not? Molly would join in. She was wearing her smart new tartan dress and tried desperately to understand who the twins were talking about.
“Of course Adoni says our tomatoes are wrong for the horiatiki salad but…”
“But Vonni said that Irish tomatoes are fine if you brush a little honey over them …”
“It's a kind of creative thing to do, making a meal…” Simon seemed surprised by the thought.
“Molly knows this. She's been making Paddy and Declan meals for years.” Maud was more tactful.
Molly let it all wash over her until she heard the key turn in the lock. Declan and Fiona were home. They had picked Paddy up at the pub. The feast could now begin.
The twins carefully explained every dish a
s if they had invented it. The Carrolls listened, entranced, as the twins told of the midnight café, the market in the square, of the crowds that came up every night to Andreas, how Simon and Maud had worked there at night as well as in Vonni's shop during the day. Adoni had even organized a truck that left the square every hour to ferry people up and back.
“Oh, they're not nearly as tough now as they were in my day. We had to haul ourselves up there all by ourselves!” Fiona said.
“Was your day a long time ago?” Simon asked.
Fiona waited politely for Maud to finish the sentence, but Maud was uncharacteristically looking down at the tablecloth.
“Oh, yes, sorry, we weren't to talk about your day,” Simon said, remembering.
“It's just that Vonni said it wasn't the best of times for you,” Maud said.
“No, it wasn't, but the place was terrific and even though I was being very foolish over a fellow at the time, I met a lot of good friends, and I'm thrilled that you met some of them too.”
So it hadn't been a disaster after all. Simon let his breath out slowly. “Oh, they were wonderful people and we'll never be able to thank you enough for introducing us,” he said.
“I heard you were great workers and great company. She misses your chats,” Fiona said.
“We showed her how to text, but I don't think it's going to be her thing.”
“No, I can't see her doing it,” Fiona agreed.
“But she is thinking of coming to your wedding,” Maud said.
“We haven't actually set the date yet,” Declan pointed out.
“We said it wasn't definite …” Simon said.
“…but it would probably be before the end of the summer …” Maud explained.
“… while the good weather is still here …”
“… and the days are longer.”
“Great,” Fiona said, laughing. “You seemed to have covered all the main points. And do you think she'll come?”
“She wasn't going to and we told her that you considered her a great friend …”
“… and that friendship should never be one-sided …”
