by Maeve Binchy
“Let’s go to Ennio’s,” she suggested, and before her mother could find a reason not to go, it was all settled. “Ennio’s, tomorrow, one o’clock.”
Di Kelly looked well as she came into the restaurant. She wore a red belted coat with a white polo-necked collar underneath. She must be fifty-three but she didn’t look forty. Her hair showed that all that brushing had not been in vain, and all that walking had ensured that she was trim and fit.
She did not, however, look at ease.
“This is nice,” Lisa said brightly. “How have you been keeping?”
“Oh, fine. And you?”
“Fine also.”
“And have you any news for me?” her mother asked with an interested expression on her face.
“What kind of news, exactly?”
“Well, I wondered if you were going to tell me that you and this Anton were getting married or anything. You’ve had him out on approval for long enough.” She gave a tinkling laugh, showing she was nervous.
“Married? To Anton? Lord, no! I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Oh, sorry, I thought that that was what this was about. You were going to ask me to the wedding but not your father.”
“No, nothing as dramatic as that,” Lisa said.
“So why did you invite me, then?”
“Does there have to be a reason? You’re my mother and I’m your daughter. That’s reason enough for most people.”
“But we aren’t like most people,” her mother said simply.
“Why did you stay with him?” Lisa had not intended to ask this as baldly as it came out.
“We all have choices to make.…” Her mother was vague.
“But you couldn’t choose to live with him, not after you knew what he was doing.” Lisa was full of disgust.
“Life’s a compromise, Lisa. Sooner or later you’ll understand that. I had options: leave him and be by myself in a flat or stay and live in a house I liked.”
“But you can have no respect for him.”
“I was never very interested in sex. He was. That’s all. I didn’t enjoy it. You saw we had two separate beds …”
“I also saw him bringing that woman into what was your bedroom,” Lisa said.
“It was only a couple of times. He was very ashamed that you saw. Did you tell Katie?”
“Why does that matter?” Lisa asked.
“I just wondered. She hardly ever calls. He thinks it’s because you told her. I said she had stopped calling a long time ago.”
“And did it not upset you that both your daughters feel a million miles from you?”
“You are always very courteous—you’ve invited me to lunch to keep up the relationship.”
“What relationship? Do you think my asking you did the clematis grow over the garage and you asking me whether Anton’s is doing well is a relationship?”
Di shrugged. “It’s as good as most.”
“No, it’s not. It’s totally unnatural. I live with a little baby girl. She’s not yet one and she is loved by so many people you wouldn’t believe it. She will never be left alone, bewildered, like Katie and I were. It’s natural for people to love children. You were both so cold.… I just hoped you’d tell me why.”
Di was quite calm. “I didn’t like your father very much, even before we were married, but I hated my job more and I had no money to spend on clothes, on going to the cinema, on anything. So I have a part-time job which I like and I thought it was a fair exchange for marrying him. I didn’t realize the sex thing was going to be so important, but, well, if I didn’t want it, then it was only fair to let him go out and get it.”
“Or stay in and have it,” Lisa interrupted.
“I told you that was only two or three times.”
“How could you put up with it?”
“It was that or start out on my own again and, unlike you, I had no qualifications. I have a badly paid job in a dress shop. As it is, I have a nice house and food on the table.”
“So you’d prefer to share a man that you admit you don’t like very much with prostitutes?”
“I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as cooking and cleaning a fine house. I have a garden which I love, I play bridge with friends and go to the cinema. It’s a way of living.”
“You’ve obviously thought it through,” Lisa said, with some grudging acceptance.
“Yes I did. I didn’t expect to tell you all this. Of course, I didn’t expect you to ask.” Her mother was self-possessed now and eating her veal Milanese with every appearance of enjoyment.
Maud was serving in the restaurant but realized that this was a very intense conversation, so she steered away from personal chat. She moved gracefully around the room and Lisa saw Marco looking at her approvingly as he poured the wine for customers. That was what love and marriage was about—not this hopeless, downbeat bargain that her parents had made. For the first time ever, Lisa felt a wave of sympathy wash over her.
For both of them.
Faith stayed in the flat several nights a week now. She was able to look after Frankie and put her to bed on the evenings that all three of them studied. It was a curious little family grouping, but it worked. Faith said she found working like this so much easier than doing it alone. Between them they went over the latest lecture and talked it out. They made notes on what to ask the lecturer next week and they revised for their exams in August. They all felt that it had been worth doing, and now that graduation was in sight they began to imagine how it would all work out for them when they had letters after their names.
Noel would immediately seek a better position at Hall’s, and if it wasn’t forthcoming then he would have the courage and qualifications to apply somewhere else. Faith would put herself forward as a manager in her office. She was doing that work in all but name and salary, so they would have to promote her.
Lisa? Well, Lisa was at a loss to know what her qualifications would lead to.
At one time she had hoped to be a partner in Anton’s. But now? Well, she would have to return to the marketplace. It was humiliating, but she would have to contact Kevin, the boss she had left when she went to work with Anton. That was last year when she had been reasonably sane and good at her job. She picked up the phone with trepidation.
“Well, hello!” Kevin was entitled to be surprised and a bit mocking. For months now Lisa had avoided him if ever they turned up at the same function; he had not been a customer in Anton’s. It was very hard to call him and tell him that she had failed.
He made it fairly easy.
“You’re on the market again, I gather,” he said.
“You can crow, Kevin. You were right. I should have listened. I should have thought it out.”
“But you were in love, of course,” Kevin said. There was only a mildly sardonic tone to his voice. He was entitled to have a lot more I-told-you-so.
“That was true, yes.”
If he noticed the past tense he said nothing.
“So he didn’t pay you in cash—I’m guessing. Did he repay you in love?”
“No, that’s in pretty short supply these days.”
“So you’re looking for a job?”
“I was wondering if you knew of anything? Anything at all?”
“But this may just be a lovers’ tiff. In a week’s time you could well be back with him.”
“That won’t happen,” Lisa said.
“Right now I can only offer you a junior place. Somewhere to settle for a while. I can’t give you a top job. It wouldn’t be fair on the others.”
She was very humble now. “I’d be more grateful than I could tell you, Kevin.”
“Not at all. Start Monday?”
“Can I make it the Monday after? I’m working in a sandwich bar and I’ll have to give them notice … get someone else for them.”
“My, my, Lisa, you have changed,” Kevin said as he hung up.
Lisa went and told her boss immediately. “I’ll find you another sandwic
h maker in a week,” she promised.
“Hey, I want much more than that. I want a market adviser and a graphic designer as well.” Hugh laughed.
“That may take longer, but anyway I wanted to tell you.”
“I’m sorry to lose you. I had ferocious designs on you, actually. I was biding my time.”
“Always a mistake,” she said cheerfully. “Now, Hugh, if you are to have any business at all, put your mind on sandwiches—what about a mild tandoori chicken wrap? They’d love that.”
“Let’s go out in a blaze of glory for your last week.”
Lisa made the spicy chicken sandwiches and in between times texted Maud and Simon to look for a replacement. One of their friends would be able to do it without any problem. They had found somebody in a couple of hours.
“Send her up to me and I’ll train her in,” Lisa suggested.
The girl was called Tracey. She was eager-looking but covered in tattoos.
Tactfully, Lisa offered her a shirt.
“We wear these here buttoned at the wrist,” she said. “Hugo is very insistent about that.”
“Bit of an old fuddy-duddy, is he?” Tracey asked.
“Bit of a young fuddy-duddy; definitely a looker,” she said.
Tracey brightened. This job might have hidden benefits.
· · ·
Lisa was amazed at how quickly she managed to adapt to a life that didn’t center around Anton’s. Not that she didn’t miss it; several times a day she wondered what they might all be doing and whether Anton would use any more of her ideas to beat the downturn in business. But there was plenty to occupy her, and on most fronts it was going very well.
Lizzie found the days endless. The savage, raw pain of grief was now giving way to a gnawing ache, and the void in her life was threatening to consume her.
“I’m thinking of getting a little job,” she confided to the twins.
“What work would you do, Lizzie?” Simon asked.
“Anything, really. I used to clean houses.”
“You’d be too tired for that nowadays,” Simon said practically.
“You could work at managing something, Lizzie,” Maud suggested.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’d be afraid of the responsibility.”
“Would you like to work in Marco’s restaurant? Well, his father’s restaurant. They’re looking for someone to come in part-time to supervise sending the laundry out and take in the cheese delivery and to sort yesterday’s tips out from the credit card receipts. You could do that, couldn’t you?”
“Well, I might be able to, but Ennio would never give me a big responsible job like that,” Lizzie said anxiously.
“Of course he would,” Simon said loyally.
“You’re family, Lizzie,” said Maud, looking down with pleasure at her engagement ring.
Ania’s baby was due in a couple of months and there was great excitement in the heart clinic, mainly because Ania’s period of bed rest was over and she was back at work, but under constant supervision.
“I feel much safer here,” she said piteously, so they let her stay, even though everyone jumped when she took a deep breath or reached up to take a file out of a cabinet.
Clara Casey said that Ania had been so upset by her miscarriage that they must all be on hand to help her the moment there was the remotest sign of the baby. Clara knew the girl was apprehensive—far from home, from her mother and sisters. Her husband, Carl, was, if possible, even more excited than Ania. He took to hanging around the clinic himself in case there should be any news.
Clara was very tolerant. “Oh, work round him,” she told the others. “The poor boy is distracted in case anything goes wrong this time.”
Clara herself was fairly distracted by matters on the home front: Frank Ennis and his son. The relationship had been prickly from the start, and hadn’t improved much during the boy’s visit. Des had gone back to Australia and they kept in touch from time to time. Not often enough for Frank, who put great effort into writing weekly e-mails to the boy.
“You’d think he’d do more than send a postcard of the Barrier Reef,” Frank grumbled.
“Look, be grateful for what you get. My daughter Adi only sends a card too. I don’t know where she is and what she’s doing. It’s just the way things are.”
Then came the word they had not expected.
I find myself thinking a lot about Ireland these days. I know I was rough on you and didn’t really believe you when you said you didn’t know what your family had done, but it took time to get my head around it all. Perhaps we should have another go. I was thinking of spending a year there, if that wouldn’t put you out. I’ve been in negotiations about jobs and apparently my degree and diploma would be recognised there.
You must tell me if this is something you would be happy with and I would find myself an apartment, rather than crowd you out. Who knows, during my year there we might try the father-son thing and see how it goes. In any case, I’d like to meet Clara and even my nearly stepsisters?
They were both silent when they read the letter. It was the first time Des Raven had shown any sign of wanting a father-son relationship. And also the first time that he had any thought of meeting Clara.…
The results of the examinations had been posted on the college notice board. Noel and Faith and Lisa had all done well and the diploma would be theirs. They celebrated with giant ice creams at the café beside the college and planned their outfits for graduation day. They would be wearing black gowns and there would be pale-blue hoods.
“Hoods?” Noel asked, horrified.
“That’s just what they call them—they’re just the bits that go over our shoulders, to mark us out as different, not engineers or draftsmen or anything.” Lisa knew it all.
“I’m going to wear a yellow dress I have already—you won’t see much of it under the gown. I’ll spend the money on good shoes,” Faith said.
“I’m going to get a red dress and borrow Katie’s new shoes.” Lisa had it sorted as well. “Now, Noel, what about you?”
“Why this emphasis on shoes?” Noel asked.
“Because everyone sees them when you go up on the stage for your parchment.”
“If I polished up these ones?” He looked down dubiously at his feet. The girls shook their heads. New shoes were called for.
“I’ll get you a pale-blue tie from one of my brothers,” Faith promised.
“And I’ll iron your good shirt—any money there is, spend it on shoes,” Lisa commanded.
“It’s a lot of fuss about nothing,” Noel grumbled.
“Nights of lectures, hours of study—and you call it nothing!” Lisa was outraged.
“And what about the photos to show Frankie?” Faith asked.
“I’ll get the damn shoes!” Noel promised.
The day of the graduation in September was very bright and sunny. That was a relief: there would be no umbrellas or people squinting into the rain. Frankie was excited to see them all dressing up.
She crawled around the floor, getting under everyone’s feet and mumbled a lot to herself about it—words that didn’t make much sense until they identified “Frankie too.”
“Of course you’re going too, darling.” Faith lifted her up in the air. “And I have a lovely little blue dress for you to wear. It will match your daddy’s tie and you’ll be the most beautiful little girl in the whole world!”
Noel looked very well. He was much admired by the women, who dusted flecks off his shoulders and examined his new shoes with cries of approval. Then Emily arrived to take Frankie in the buggy wearing her new dress, and they all set out for the college.
Frankie behaved perfectly during the ceremony. Better by far than other babies, who cried or struggled at crucial times during the graduation. Noel gazed at her with pride. She was indeed the most beautiful little girl in the whole world! He had done all this for her—yes, for himself too, but all this work had been worth it for the chance to make a life for her.
>
The new graduates filed onto the stage and the audience raked through the ranks until they found their own. The graduates also searched the audience. Noel saw Emily holding Frankie and he smiled with pleasure and pride.
Lisa saw her mother and sister both dressed up to honor the day; she saw Garry there and all their friends.
Then she saw Anton.
He looked lost, as if he didn’t belong there. She remembered writing down this date in his diary months back. It didn’t mean anything to her that he was there and it had all been her own fault. Anton had never loved her. It had all been in her mind.
The president spoke warmly about the graduates.
“They had to give up a lot of social life to do this course. They missed television and cinemas and theaters. They want to thank you, their families and their friends, for supporting them on this undertaking. Each and every graduate here today has gone on a journey. They are different people to the people who started out with a leap of faith. They have much more than just mere letters after their names. They have the satisfaction of having set out to do something and seen it through.
“I salute them all on your behalf.”
There was tumultuous applause at this, and the new graduates all beamed from the stage. Then the presentation began …
They had planned a special lunch in Ennio’s together with Noel, his family, Emily and Hat, Declan, Fiona and the Carroll parents. Faith would bring her father and three of her five brothers. Lizzie was working there as a supervisor, and she had reserved a big table for them; Ennio would give them a special price; the twins and Marco would be serving. Lizzie would even sit down and join them for the meal.
Lizzie had found the job a great help. For whole sections of the day she didn’t stop and think of Muttie with that sad, empty look that broke her neighbors’ hearts. Here it was too busy, too frenetic. There was too much shouting to leave any time to go over all she had lost. Ennio was always there with a coffee or a word of encouragement. She met new people, people who had never known Muttie. It wasn’t really any easier, but it was less raw. Lizzie would admit that much, and the twins were there for her every step of the way. Lizzie was a religious person. She thanked God every morning and every night for having arranged things so that Maud and Simon came to live with them.
