by Maeve Binchy
Lisa was not happy to be home.
Emily was walking towards Muttie and Lizzie’s house when she saw Lisa, and she could judge Lisa’s mood from a long way off. She wondered was it going to be her only role in life from now on cheering people up and stressing the positive.
“How are things, Lisa? Noel told me you’ve been on a great trip to Scotland,” Emily said, without giving Lisa a chance to ask her about Betsy’s wedding.
“It was magic, Emily. Were you ever somewhere and wished that it would never end?”
Emily thought for a moment. “Not really. I suppose there has been a day here and there that I never wanted to end. My friend Betsy’s wedding day was one, and driving around Connemara was another. I suppose there were good days when I was teaching art too.”
“I had days which were all like that in Scotland,” Lisa said, her face radiant at the thought of it all.
“Great—you’ll have the memory of that to keep you going when you get back to your studies.” Emily knew she sounded brisk.
“Noel’s been marvelous; he has all his notes photocopied for me and he’s arranged for Molly Carroll to take Frankie for a walk in the park and he had to make sure that Bossy Boots knows all our plans. I’m just coming down here to make sure that Mrs. Carroll has cover for the thrift shop.”
“You can’t stand in the thrift shop all day—you have your studies to catch up on.”
“I have some of my notes here. It won’t be that busy,” Lisa said.
“I’ll look in after I’ve seen Muttie and Lizzie.”
“Not much good news there,” Lisa said, shaking her head. “Muttie’s chemo has stopped and Lizzie keeps making impossible plans for the future. Hey, you have enough to do getting over jet lag and visiting Muttie. I’ll survive in the thrift shop for a bit.”
“We’ll see,” Emily said.
· · ·
Muttie looked much frailer even after three weeks. His color was poor and his face seemed to have hollows in it; his clothes hung off him. His good humor was clearly not affected, though.
“Well … show us pictures of how the Americans do a wedding,” he said, putting on his spectacles.
“It’s not very typical,” Emily explained. “Fairly mature bride and maid of honor, for one thing.”
“The groom is no spring chicken either,” Muttie agreed.
“Look at the lovely clothes!” Lizzie was delighted with it all. “And what are all these Chinese signs?”
“Oh, we went to Chinatown for dinner,” Emily said. “Dozens of Chinese restaurants, Chinese shops and little pagodas and decorations everywhere.”
“That’s where we’ll go when we go to New York later on in the year. Emily will mark our card.”
“That’s if I can ever get myself on the plane.” Muttie shook his head. “I seem to have run out of puff, Emily. Hooves here wants me to take him up to have a drink with my Associates, but I find the walk exhausts me.”
“Do you get to see them at all?” Emily knew how much Muttie loved talking horses to the men in the bar while Hooves sat with his head on Muttie’s knee and his eyes full of adoration.
“Oh, Dr. Hat is very good. And sometimes young Declan Carroll gets a fierce thirst on him and he drives me up there for a few pints.”
Emily knew very well that Declan would often pretend a fierce thirst and get himself a pint or two of lemonade shandy while he drove his elderly neighbor up to the pub.
“And how are all the family?” Emily inquired.
As she had expected, they all seemed to be making sudden visits to Ireland from Chicago. Muttie was shaking his head at the coincidence of it all.
“I don’t know where they get the money, Emily, I really don’t. I mean, there’s a recession out in those places as well as here.”
“And the twins? Busy as ever?”
“Oh, Maud and Simon are wonderful. There’s less chat about their going to New Jersey, but then again Maud has an Italian boyfriend—a really polite, respectful young man called Marco. They’re all setting up this phone for us where you can see the person at the other end. It’s called Skype and this weekend we’ll be calling my daughter Marian in Chicago and we’ll see her and all her family. It doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Amazing thing, technology,” Emily agreed.
“Yes, but it’s almost going too quickly. Fancy our children getting on planes and coming from the ends of the earth over here to see us and then this magic phone. I don’t understand it at all.…”
Emily went to the thrift shop and found the twins working there. Lisa was in a corner sighing over her notes. There were no customers.
“We don’t all have to be here,” Emily said, taking off her coat.
“Maud and I were just wondering …”
“We don’t want to put anyone out …”
“It’s just there’s this Italian cookery demonstration …”
“At Ennio’s restaurant on the quays …”
“And Maud fancies the son of the house there rotten …” Simon wanted everything to be clear.
“Not true. We’ve been out a few times …”
“But it’s starting in half an hour, you see …”
“And if it was possible for us to work here some other time …”
Emily cut across this double act. “Go now. This minute,” she said.
“If you’re sure …”
“If it’s not putting you out …”
“Is that the pasta house where I saw you?” Lisa asked suddenly.
“You were there with Moira. Traitor!” Maud took no prisoners.
“You saw her socially?” Simon sounded disgusted.
“It was different. She was lonely.”
“I wonder why.…” Maud was unforgiving.
“Are you still here?” Emily asked, opening the door of the thrift shop. As they left, she turned to Lisa. “Go back to Chestnut Court and study properly, Lisa, and I’ll do the pricing on the new clothes that have come in. Otherwise you and I will waste the morning and not a penny will be raised for St. Jarlath.”
Lisa looked at her in surprise. “But you don’t believe any of this St. Jarlath nonsense, do you, Emily?”
“I suppose we’re just keeping our options open.” Emily was slightly apologetic.
“But think about it, Emily. If there were a God, then I would be engaged to Anton, Stella wouldn’t have died in childbirth and Frankie would have a mother. Noel would be recognized for what he could do at Hall’s, Muttie wouldn’t be dying of cancer, you would be running the world or the civil service or something, with a nice, undemanding husband to cook you a meal when you got home every night.”
“What makes you think that’s what I’d want a God to get for me?” Emily asked.
“What else would you want? Except to run things …”
“I’d want something totally different: a home of my own, the chance to take up painting to see if I was any good at it, a small office from which I could run Emily’s Window Boxes … I don’t want the undemanding husband or the great power of running the country. No way!”
“So you say.” Lisa knew it all.
“Is it going to be as hard to get rid of you as the twins?” Emily asked.
“Right. I’m going. Thanks, Emily. You’re amazing. If I’d just come back from America, I’d be on all fours rather than going straight in to work. I’m nearly a basket case and I was only in Scotland!”
“Well, you were probably much more active on your holiday than I was on mine,” Emily said.
Rather than work out what Emily might have in mind, Lisa left. As she walked up the road she thought about Scotland. They had stayed in five different hotels and in every one of them Anton and she had made love. Twice in the place where they had the honeymoon suite. Why did Anton not miss this and want her to stay with him every night? He had kissed her good-bye when they got to Dublin Airport and said it had been great. Why did he use the past tense? It could all have continued when they wer
e back home.
It was meant to continue.
He had said he loved her—four times he had said it—two of them were sort of jokey when she had got things right about various hotels and restaurants, but twice when they were making love. And so he must have meant it, because who would say something like that at such an intense time and not mean it?
In the thrift shop there was a beautiful green and black silk blouse. An “unwanted gift,” said the lady who had brought in. It was still in its box with tissue paper. Emily hung it up on a clothes hanger and tried to price it.
When it was new it had probably cost a hundred euros, but nobody who came here would pay anything remotely like that. The lady who had donated it wouldn’t be back to see how it was priced, but in any event Emily didn’t want to price it too low. It was beautiful. If it were in her own size she would happily have paid fifty euros for it. She was still holding it when Moira came in.
“Just checking where Frankie is,” she said abruptly.
“Good morning, Moira,” Emily said, with pointed politeness. “Frankie has gone to the park with Mrs. Carroll, Dr. Declan’s mother.”
“Oh, I know Mrs. Carroll, yes. I was just making sure nobody had put Frankie in a ‘File and Forget’ file.” Moira smiled to take the harm out of her words. It was not entirely successful.
Emily had a touch of frost in her voice. “That would never happen to Frankie Lynch.”
“You mean well, certainly, Emily, but she’s not your responsibility.”
“She’s family.” Emily’s eyes glinted. “She is the daughter of my first cousin. That makes her my first cousin once removed.”
“Imagine!” Moira wasn’t impressed.
“Can I do anything else for you, Moira?” Emily was managing to hold on to her manners, but only just.
“Well, I’m going out to the heart clinic and the woman who runs it is like a clotheshorse. She’s interested in nothing but clothes.”
“I believe she’s a good heart specialist also,” Emily said.
“Oh, yes, well, I’m sure she is, but she’s always commenting on what you wear.… I was just wondering if you had anything … well, you know …”
“This is your lucky day. I have this beautiful green and black blouse. It would look so good with your black skirt there. Do try it on.”
Moira looked very well in it. “How much?” she asked, in her usual charmless way.
“Would be over a hundred in the shops. I was going to put fifty on it, but you’re a good customer, so shall we say forty-five?” It was more than Moira had intended to spend, but they agreed on forty-five and Moira headed off towards the heart clinic in her finery. The shabby gray blouse she had been wearing was wrapped up in the bottom of her briefcase.
As soon as she was gone, Emily telephoned Fiona at the clinic.
“I know this is a bit sneaky …,” she began.
“I love sneaky,” said Fiona.
“Moira Tierney is on her way to you wearing a smashing new blouse she bought here. She may start to regret her buy and grizzle about the price, so build her up to the skies.”
“Will do,” Fiona said enthusiastically.
By the time Moira reached the clinic, there were quite a lot of people there. Frank Ennis had come in for one of his unexpected and disliked visits. They were having tea when he arrived.
“Oh, nice biscuits,” he said, with a look of utter disapproval.
“Paid for by ourselves, Frank,” Clara said cheerfully. “Every week someone gets to choose the biscuits and pay for them. Lord forbid that the whole of St. Brigid’s would have to come to a halt because the heart clinic charged the central fund for biscuits. Do have another while you’re here.…”
Moira came in just then.
“You bring a touch of class to this place,” Frank Ennis said.
Barbara took offense. “She doesn’t have to wear a uniform,” she whispered to her friend Fiona, nodding her head at Moira. To her bewilderment, Fiona didn’t seem to agree.
“That’s a beautiful blouse, Moira.” Fiona played her part perfectly.
Clara was looking at it too.
“You have a great eye for clothes, Moira. That’s top-class silk.”
In a million years Moira would never tell them where she’d bought it. She murmured a bit, refused tea and biscuits and went straight to her room. She had three new patients to see today.
The first man came into her small room. He was large, with a lined face and shaggy hair, and was fairly wordless. Moira flashed him one of her very brief smiles and took out a piece of paper.
“Well, now, Mr.… er … Kennedy. Your address first, please.”
“St. Patrick’s Hostel.”
“Yes, I see you’ve been there since you left hospital. And before that …?”
“In England.”
“Addresses?”
“Ah, well, I was here and there, you know …”
Moira did know. Only too well. Irishmen who had lost years of their lives working on the buildings, using a different name every month, paying no tax, having no insurance, no record of years spent and wages passed over in cash in a pub of a Friday evening.
“Before that, then,” she said wearily. One way or another, she needed some kind of paperwork for this man.
“Oh, long ago I lived in Liscuan,” he said.
She looked up sharply. She had thought he looked somehow familiar.
It was Maureen Kennedy’s long-gone husband. She was planning the future of the man whose wife now lived with her father.
Noel came back from Hall’s tired.
He let himself in to Chestnut Court and found Lisa asleep at the kitchen table with his college notes all around her. He had been hoping that she might have made supper and even gone down to the Carrolls’ to collect Frankie.
But what the hell, she was probably worn out after her time in Scotland and was sorry to be home. He would go to collect Frankie. He might even bring home fish and chips. Thank God there were no lectures tonight. He might even drop in to see Muttie. Poor guy was looking desperate these days.…
Muttie welcomed him with a big smile. It made his skull-like face look worse than ever.
“Lizzie, it’s Noel. Have you a slice of cake for the lad?”
“No, thanks, Muttie. I’m collecting Frankie from Molly and Paddy. I only came to say hello. I have to get her home and put to bed.”
Maud and Simon were there, blond heads bent over a computer.
“We’ve put Skype on for Muttie,” Maud said proudly.
“So he can talk to people face-to-face,” added Simon, equally pleased.
“Well, when the two of you get settled in New Jersey, I can talk to you every week!” Muttie was bright and cheerful about it.
“Yeah, but we’re not going to New Jersey,” Maud said.
“Too much to keep us here,” Simon added darkly.
“The cookery demonstration in Ennio’s restaurant was brilliant today,” Maud said.
“He’s a very nice lad, that Marco. You’d walk many a mile before you’d meet as nice a fellow,” Muttie said. “Hurry up now, Simon, and find yourself a girl before it’s too late for us all.”
They looked at him sharply, but he didn’t mean anything sinister.
“It’s too early to settle down,” Simon said carelessly.
“Who said anything about settling down?” Maud asked.
There was a knock on the door. It was a young man with black curly hair who came in carrying a huge saucepan of something bubbling in a tomato sauce.
“This is for the grandfather of lovely Maud,” he said.
“Well, thank you, Marco,” Muttie said, pleased. “Lizzie, come in and see what’s arrived.”
Lizzie came running in from the kitchen.
“Marco! Imagine, I was just about to get the supper.”
“So that was good timing, then?” Marco beamed around the little group.
“Well, I have to go.” Noel stood up. “I’m Noel
, by the way. I’d love to join you, but I have to pick up my daughter. Buon appetito.”
Noel wished he could stay. It was heartening to see such happiness in a house that was about to go through so much sadness soon.
In Chestnut Court Lisa woke with a stiff neck. She saw Noel’s coat hanging on the back of the door. He must have come in and left again. She should have made him some kind of supper or gone to pick Frankie up from Molly Carroll’s. Too late now. He had scrawled a note saying he would come back with a fish supper. He was so kind. Wouldn’t it have been so easy if only she could have loved Noel rather than Anton. But then life didn’t work like that and maybe there would be even more obstacles in the way. She got up, stretched and set the table.
She would really love a glass of wine with the cod and French fries, but that was something that would never be brought into this house. She thought back to the lovely wine they had drunk in Scotland. She had paid for the meals on alternate nights, but she had maxed out on her credit cards and was seriously broke now. But Anton never realized that. She hoped things would change soon; she would have to get a job if Anton didn’t make a commitment.
Noel would be home shortly and she mustn’t be full of gloomy thoughts.
At 23 St. Jarlath’s Crescent, Josie and Charles Lynch sat in stunned silence. They had just closed the door behind a very serious lawyer in a striped suit. He had come to tell them just how much they had inherited from the late Meriel Monty. When all the assets were liquidated, the estate would come, the lawyer said very slowly, to a total of approximately 289,000 euros.
Chapter Eleven
It was good that Eddie Kennedy didn’t recognize her, Moira thought. This way she could continue to be professional.
The hostel where he was living was only a short-stay place; soon he would need something long-term. If things had been different, she might have inquired more about the setup in Liscuan, wondered whether he might even at this late stage be able to patch things up with his wife. After all, he didn’t drink now. But the very thought of destroying the great content that her father had finally found late in a troubled life was one she could not bear to let into her mind.
