by Maeve Binchy
‘Oh you’ll meet dozens of them when you go to Ireland, if you go,’ she said. ‘Are you on the run or anything?’
Ben was startled, it wasn’t what he had expected. ‘Why do you ask that?’ he wanted to know.
‘Well, it says on your card that you’re a vice-president, normally they have people who do their bookings for them. This seems like something secret.’
She had an Irish accent and he felt he was there already, in her country where people asked unusual questions and would be interested in the reply.
‘I want to escape, that’s right, but not from the law, just from my friends and colleagues—they keep trying to involve me in their holiday plans and I don’t want it.’
‘And why don’t you have any of your own?’ Fionnula asked.
‘Because my wife died in April.’ He said it baldly as he had never done before.
Fionnula took it in. ‘Well I don’t imagine you’d want too much razzamatazz then,’ she said.
‘No, just a typical Irish Christmas,’ he said.
‘There’s no such thing, anymore than there’s a typical United States Christmas. If you go to one of the cities, I can book you a hotel where there will be a Christmas program, and maybe visits to the races and dances, and pub tours . . . or in the country, you could go to somewhere with a lot of sports and hunting and—or even maybe rent a cottage where you’d meet nobody at all, but that might be a bit lonely for you.’
‘So what would you suggest?’ Ben asked.
‘I don’t know you, I wouldn’t know what you’d like, you’ll have to tell me more about yourself.’ She was simple and direct.
‘If you say that to every client you can’t be very cost effective; it would take you three weeks to make a booking.’
Fionnula looked at him with spirit. ‘I don’t say that to every client, I only say it to you. You’ve lost your wife, it’s different for you, it’s important we send you to the right place.’
It was true, Ben thought, he had lost his wife. His eyes filled with tears.
‘So you wouldn’t want a family scene then?’ Fionnula asked, pretending she didn’t see that he was about to cry.
‘Not unless I could find someone as remote and distant as myself, then they wouldn’t want to have anyone to stay.’
‘Isn’t it very hard on you?’ she said, full of sympathy.
‘The rest of the world manages. This city must be full of people who have lost other people.’ Ben was going back into his shell.
‘You could stay with my dad,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You’d be doing me a huge favour, if you did go and stay with him; he is much more remote and distant than you are, and he’ll be on his own for Christmas.’
‘Ah, yes, but . . .’
‘And he lives in a big, stone farmhouse with two, big collie dogs that need to be walked for miles every day along the beach. And there’s a grand pub a half a mile down the road, but he won’t have a Christmas tree because there’ll be no one to look at it but himself.’
‘And why aren’t you there with him?’ Ben spoke equally directly to the girl Fionnula whom he had never met before.
‘Because I followed a man from my home town all the way to New York city. I thought he’d love me and it would be all right.’
Ben did not need to ask if it had been all right, it obviously had been nothing of the sort.
Fionnula spoke. ‘My father said hard things and I said hard things, so I’m here and he’s there.’
Ben looked at her. ‘But you could call him, he could call you.’
‘It’s not that easy, we’d each be afraid the other would put the phone down. When you don’t call that could never happen.’
‘So I’m to be the peacemaker.’ Ben worked it out.
‘You have a lovely, kind face and you have nothing else to do,’ she said.
The collie dogs were called Sunset and Seaweed. Niall O’Connor apologised and said they were the most stupid names imaginable chosen by his daughter years back, but you have to keep faith with a dog.
‘Or a daughter,’ Ben the peacemaker had said.
‘True I suppose,’ Fionnula’s father said.
They shopped in the town and bought the kind of food they would like for Christmas: steak and onions, runny cheese and up-market ice-cream with lumps of chocolate in it. They went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Niall O’Connor told Ben his wife had been called Helen too, they had a good cry together. Next day, as they cooked their steaks, they never mentioned the tears. They walked the hills and explored the lakes, and they called on the neighbours and they learned the gossip of the neighbourhood. There had been no date fixed for Ben’s return.
‘I have to call Fionnula,’ he said.
‘She’s your travel agent,’ Niall O’Connor said.
‘And your daughter,’ said Ben the peacemaker.
Fionnula said New York was cold but back in business unlike Ireland which had presumably closed down for two weeks.
‘It went great, the typical Irish Christmas,’ Ben said. ‘I was about to stay on and have a typical Irish New Year as well . . . so about the ticket . . . ?’
‘Ben, your ticket is an open ticket, you can travel any day you like . . . why are you really calling me?’
‘We were hoping that you could come over here and have a quick New Year with us,’ he said.
‘Who was hoping . . . ?’
‘Well Sunset and Seaweed and Niall and myself to name but four,’ he said. ‘I’d put them all on to you but the dogs are asleep. Niall’s here though.’
He handed the phone to Fionnula’s father. And as they spoke to each other, he moved out to the door and looked at the Atlantic Ocean from the other side. The night sky was full of stars. Somewhere out there two Helens would be pleased. He took a deep breath that was more deep and free than any he had taken since the springtime.
What Is Happiness?
THEY HAD CALLED HIM PARNELL TO SHOW HOW IRISH HE WAS. At school they called him Parny so that was it. Anyway, Kate and Shane Quinn could always explain it to anyone who mattered that his real name was Parnell, like the great leader. It was just as well nobody asked them too much about the great leader. They were somewhat hazy about what he was leading and when and why. They liked the Parnell Monument when they came to Dublin but they didn’t like at all the news that the great leader had been a Protestant, and a womaniser. They hoped that this was just a local story. Parny liked Dublin, it was small and kind of folksy. People seemed poor compared to at home and it was hard to find the downtown area but it was much better than being at home for Christmas. Much, much better.
At home there would have been Dad’s receptionist, Esther. Esther had worked for Dad for nine years, since Parny was a baby. Esther was a wonderful receptionist but a sad, lonely person, according to Dad. Esther was a nutter who was in love with Parny’s father, according to Mom. Last Christmas, Esther had come to the house and sat down on the doorstep and cried. She had shouted at them and gone round and banged on windows until they had to let her in for fear of the neighbours’ complaining. Esther had said that she would not be cast aside. They had all asked Parny to go to bed.
‘But I’ve only just got up. It’s Christmas Day for the Lord’s sake!’ he had cried, not unreasonably. They begged him to go back to bed with his toys. He agreed grudgingly because his mom had whispered that mad Esther would go sooner. He had listened on the stairs of course, it had been very bewildering indeed.
He gathered that Dad must have had a romance with Esther at one stage. It sounded impossible what with Dad being so old, desperately old now, and with Esther looking like she did, terrible. And it seemed hard to know why Mom was so upset, she must be well finished with Dad now. But that was definitely what it was about.
There were enough kids at school who had moms and dads split up for him to know about this and Esther kept shouting that Dad had promised to divorce Mom as soon as the brat was old enough. Parny was ver
y annoyed to be called a brat and bristled on the stairs but both Mom and Dad seemed very annoyed too and had rushed to his defence so Esther had lost out on that one, and at least his parents seemed to be on his side. Parny gave it up after a while and had gone back to his room to play with his presents as they had advised.
‘I want some happiness. I want to be happy too,’ he heard Esther shouting downstairs.
‘What’s happiness, Esther?’ he had heard his father asking wearily.
They had been right, it was the best thing for him to go upstairs. Later when she was gone they came to get him. They were full of apologies. Parny was more interested in it all than frightened.
‘Did you plan to divorce Mom and go off with her, Dad?’ he enquired, for the record, as it were.
There was a lot of bluster. Eventually Dad said, ‘No, I told her I would, but I didn’t mean it. I told her a lie, son, and I’m paying for it dearly.’
Parny nodded. ‘I thought that was it,’ he said sagely. Mom was pleased with this explanation of Dad’s. She patted Dad’s hand.
‘Your father is a mighty brave man to admit that, Parny,’ she said. ‘Not all men are so severely punished for straying from the home.’
Parny said that having Esther screaming on the doorstep was a terrible punishment all right. Did she scream and rave in the surgery too? he wondered.
No, apparently not, she was nice and calm and official when wearing her white coat. It was only in leisure times and particularly high holidays that she became upset and carried on. Labour Day and Thanksgiving she had called but she had not been so disturbed. During the year Esther had come to the house again, she came on New Year’s Eve, and on Dad’s birthday and in the middle of the St Patrick’s Day party they held, and they saw her turning up for the Fourth of July picnic just as they were unpacking the barbecue and Dad and Mom had leaped back into the car and they had driven for miles looking over their shoulder in case she was behind.
So, this year, to escape her, they had come to Ireland. They had always wanted to visit the home of their ancestors, they had said, but now with Parny being old enough to appreciate everything, and the dollar being such a good little spender in terms of Irish money, well, why not? And actually, things were getting very urgent now. At this year’s Thanksgiving, Esther had arrived wearing a spaceman suit and they thought she was a singing telegram and opened the door. Then she was in like a flash. So that’s why they were in the land of his ancestors at last. Parny was glad, he missed his friends at Christmas but he was becoming as edgy as Mom and Dad about any celebration in case he saw the red, mad face of Esther appearing.
He had half hoped she would turn up at his own birthday. It would have been something for the school to talk about for months. But she didn’t. It was only official celebrations and Dad’s birthday. She must be nearly mad enough to put away, Parny thought. Seriously he wondered why nobody had. ‘She had nobody to put her away,’ Mom had explained.
Parny thought this might be Esther’s bit of good luck. If you had had as much bad luck as she had, then maybe it was only fair that fate should deal you the good card of having nobody around to get you locked up. She could roam free for a bit longer. He asked why Dad couldn’t fire her. Dad said there were laws about this sort of thing, and as Esther was a very good worker, which she was, and not at all mad in the office, if he fired her there would be a huge protest and he might be sued.
Dad and Mom seemed nice and relaxed now that there was no Esther. Parny saw that they held hands sometimes which was very embarrassing to watch, but at least there was nobody here that would know them so it was okay.
The hall porter became a great friend of Parny’s. He told the boy all about the days when there were dozens and dozens of American tourists staying in the hotel, when they came and hired his brother out to drive them all over Ireland and then back to the hotel again. The porter’s name was Mick Quinn and he said it was an undeniable fact that he and Parny must be some kind of relations, otherwise why would they be called the same name. Mick Quinn had all the time in the world to spare for Parny since the hotel was almost empty, and Parny’s mom and dad were given to looking into each other’s eyes and having long conversations about life.
This was all to the good. Parny used to go with Mick to collect the newspapers in the morning and helped with the luggage, he even got a tip once. He was most useful to Mick by holding the cigarettes Mick wasn’t supposed to smoke on duty so it just looked as if Parny was a forward American brat, allowed to do what he liked including smoking at the age of ten. Parny was great at sidling up when the coast was clear to give Mick a drag.
Mick was married to a woman called Rose. Parny asked a lot about Rose.
‘She’s not the worst,’ Mick would say.
‘Who is the worst?’ Parny always wanted to know. If Rose wasn’t, someone must be the worst, but Mick said it was only a manner of speaking. Mick and Rose had grown-up children now, they were away, all of them. Three in England, one in Australia and one at the other side of Dublin—which was the same as being in Australia.
What did Rose do all day when Mick was in the hotel, Parny wondered? His mom worked in a flower shop which was very smart and a perfectly fine place for a dentist’s wife to work. But Rose worked nowhere. She spent the day in a state of discontent, Mick revealed one time. She didn’t know the meaning of happiness. But he seemed ashamed he had told Parny this and never wanted to bring the subject up again.
‘What is happiness exactly, Mick?’ Parny asked.
‘Well if you don’t know, a fine young fellow like you who has everything he wants, then it would be hard for the rest of us to know.’
‘I suppose I do have a lot of things,’ Parny said. ‘But then so has Esther, and not only is she not happy but she’s crazy as a box of birds.’
‘I don’t think there is anything crazy about a box of birds,’ Mick said unexpectedly.
‘No, neither do I,’ said Parny. ‘It’s like you said about Rose not being the worst. It’s only a manner of speaking.’
‘I’m very fond of birds in fact,’ Mick Quinn said, having a quick drag out of Parny Quinn’s cigarette. ‘I’d have liked pigeons, but Rose said they were dirty.’ He shook his head sadly and Parny felt that Rose must be very nearly the worst.
‘Who is this Esther anyway?’ Mick said, anxious to drag his thoughts and conversation away from the unsatisfactory Rose.
‘It’s all too long and complicated to explain, unless we had time,’ Parny said. You couldn’t do justice to the madness of Esther in the fairly uneasy atmosphere of the hall, waiting for a manager to appear suddenly or a guest to need some assistance and advice. In fact something made Parny wonder if his new friend Mick would ever understand about Esther.
‘Maybe you might like to come on a tour with me this afternoon, you could tell me then?’ Mick said.
‘Yes, and you could tell me about the birds you might have,’ Parny said.
‘I’ll show you some birds, that would be better still.’
Parny’s mom said they had been neglecting him. She and Dad had been feeling very guilty but they had many important things to talk about. This very afternoon they would take him to a movie house. He could choose which one and if they could bear his first choice they would all go to that, but if they really couldn’t bear his first choice they might ask him to make a second choice. Parny said that he and Mick were going to visit some birds.
‘That means girls in this part of the world,’ Parny’s dad said.
‘No.’ Parny was very clear on this, it didn’t. Not with Mick. Mick had his fill of women, he had Rose who was always in a state of discontent, he wanted no more truck with women, he had told Parny that personally.
Parny’s mom thought Mick had made the right choice. She looked meaningfully at Parny’s dad and said sooner or later most men come to that conclusion.
Mick looked different in his ordinary clothes, not as splendid as in the porter’s uniform, but he said he felt
free as a seagull that soared when he put on his old jacket and trousers. He led Parny to a bus.
‘Is it an aviary?’ Parny asked, interested.
‘No. It’s more a house of a fellow. I have a part interest in some pigeons. Hardly anyone knows that except you and me,’ Mick said, looking round in case anyone on the bus might have heard it and confronted them with the information. ‘They don’t know at the hotel,’ he whispered.
‘Would they mind?’ Parny whispered back. He didn’t see the harm in having a part interest in pigeons. But it was obviously fraught with danger.
‘I just don’t want them to know my business. They’d be asking how are the pigeons. I couldn’t be doing with that.’
Parny understood immediately. To have people who knew nothing about it asking, would diminish the pigeons. ‘I’m afraid I’m not what you’d call an expert myself,’ he said, in order to make sure there were no grey areas.
‘I know that son, but you have an open mind. A young open mind.’
‘Esther said that to me once. She said I had a young mind that wasn’t closed up like the older generation.’ He was lost in wonderment that here at the other side of the earth someone should say exactly the same thing to him. He hoped this didn’t mean that Mick was crazy too like Esther. ‘Have you anyone to put you away if you go mad?’ he asked solicitously.
Mick was delighted with him. ‘You’re a living entertainment, Parny Quinn. Who’s Esther, is she your sister?’
Parny noticed that they asked each other questions and never replied to one to the other. It didn’t matter somehow, the questions weren’t that important. They got off the bus and went into a house which seemed rather poor to Parny. He hoped it wasn’t Mick’s house, he’d like Mick to have had more comfort. ‘Is this where you live?’
‘Indeed not.’ Mick sounded wistful, looking at the shabby cupboards and the piles of newspapers on the floor, the dishes on the draining-board and the empty milk bottle on the table. ‘No, I live at a place where you have to take off your shoes almost. No indeed, in my house there’d be a commotion that you’d hear at the other end of the country if I brought you in without an Act of Parliament being passed first. This is Ger’s house.’ He said it with pure envy.