Maeve Binchy

by The Quentins (Lit)

  Sometimes Quentin felt able to tell his mother about his doubts about his future career. "You know, Mother, I might not be a good accountant like Dad is," he would begin nervously.

  "Quentin, my sweet one, you are twelve years old!5 she would say. "Don't get involved in the awful world of business until you have to."

  He loved to help in the home, choosing fabrics for the sitting room, making table decorations for dinner parties.

  His father frowned on this kind of activity. "Don't have the lad doing girly things like that," he would say.

  "The lad, as you call him, likes to help, which is a blessing since all you do is sit down, put your elbows on the table, and eat and drink what's put in front of you."

  Quentin wondered did other people's parents bicker as much as his did. Probably. It wasn't something they talked much about at school. He knew one thing, which was that the other boys" mothers did not talk to them like his mother did.

  Sara Barry always called him her Sweet One, and the Light of her Life. Or something else very fancy. Other boys" mothers called them great galumphing clods and useless good-for-nothings. It was very different. And although his mother loved him to bits, she was always saying it, she never took him seriously about not wanting to be an accountant. "But my sweet boy, you are only twelve."

  Or thirteen or fourteen. By the time he was sixteen, he knew he had to say something.

  "I do not think I'm cut out for accountancy, Dad."

  "No one's cut out for it, boy. We have to work at it."

  "I won't be any good at it, truly."

  "Of course you will, when you're involved. Just concentrate on getting your exams like a good lad."

  "I'm way behind at Maths, and honestly, I'm not going to get any good exam results in anything. Isn't it better to be prepared for that now rather than it coming as an awful shock?"

  "Do you study, do your homework?" His father's frown was mighty.

  "Well, yes, I do, but ..."

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  "There you are. It's just nerves. You're too like your mother, highly strung, not a good thing for a man to be."

  Quentin failed his exams quite spectacularly.

  The atmosphere at home was very hostile. It made it worse that his parents blamed each other much more than they blamed him.

  "You upset him with all that pressure that he has to be a dull boring accountant and fill your shoes," Sara Barry hissed.

  "You fill him up with nonsense, mollycoddling him and taking him shopping with you like a poodle," Derek Barry countered.

  "You don't care about Quentin, all you care about is having two Barrys in that plodding office to annoy Bob O"Neill," Sara snapped.

  "And what do you care about, Sara? You only care that the dull plodding office, as you call it, makes enough money for you to buy ever more clothes in Haywards."

  Quentin hated hearing them shout over him. He agreed to repeat the year and have extra tuition. Derek Barry was glad that he had never mentioned any actual timings to Bob O"Neill.

  One of the Brothers up at the school was a gentle man with a faraway look. Brother Rooney was always to be found in the school gardens, digging here, planting there. He used to teach a long time ago, but he said he wasn't good at it, he would drift away and tell the boys stories.

  "That would have been nice," Quentin said.

  It wasn't really, Quentin, it was no use to them. I was meant to be putting facts into their heads, getting them exams. So I sort of drifted out to the garden, which was where I wanted to be in the first place, and I'm as happy as Larry now."

  "Aren't you lucky, Brother Rooney? I don't want to be an accountant at all!"

  "Then don't be, Quentin, be what you want."

  I wish I could."

  "What do you like? What are you good at?"

  "Nothing much. I like food. I love beautiful things and I like helping people enjoy themselves."

  "You could work in a restaurant."

  "With my parents, Brother Rooney? Can you see it?"

  "Well, it's good, honest work, and they'd get used to it in time. They'd have to."

  "And what about the bit where God says, "Honour thy Father and thy Mother"?" Quentin smiled at the older Brother.

  "It only says honour them, it doesn't say lie down like a doormat and go along with any of their cracked schemes." The old man with the gardener's hands and the faded blue eyes looked as if he was on very safe ground.

  "Is that what you did, Brother Rooney?"

  "I did it twice, boy, first to get into the Order. My parents wanted me to work on the buildings in London and bring in big money, but I wanted peace, not more noise and bustle. They were very put out, but I never raised my voice to them, and it worked. Eventually. And then when I was in here I had to fight again to get out of the classroom and into the garden. I explained over and over that I couldn't hold the children's attention, couldn't make them understand things, but I'd love to make the garden bloom, that I could serve God best that way, and that worked. Eventually."

  I wonder how long is eventually." Quentin sounded wistful.

  "You'd be wise to start at once, Quentin," said Brother Rooney, picking up his hoe and getting at some of the hard-to-reach weeds at the back of the flowerbed.

  "Eventually is now, Father, Mother," Quentin said that evening at supper.

  "What's the boy talking about?" His father rattled the paper.

  "Derek, have the courtesy at least to listen to your son."

  "Not when he's talking rubbish. What does that mean, Quentin? Is it something you got from one of your loutish friends up in the place we thought was going to make a man of you and give you an education? Nicely fooled we were, too." Derek Barry snorted.

  "No, Father, I don't have many friends as you may notice. I'm not interested in football or drinking or going to the disco, so I'm mainly on my own. I was talking to Brother Rooney, who does the gardens up in the school."

  "Well, you might have tried talking to one of the more educated Brothers, one who would tell us what on earth we are to do with you, my darling." This time it was Quentin's mother's turn to look sad and impatient with him.

  "You see, I'll never be an accountant. I'll never get the qualifications to get me taken on to study as one. We will all understand and accept that eventually. So why don't we accept it now?"

  "And you'll do what with your life, exactly?" his father asked.

  "I'll get a job, Father, go out and get a job like everyone else."

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  "And what about the place in my office I was keeping for you?" His father had lines of disappointment almost etched into his face.

  "Father, I'm sorry, but it was only a dream, your dream. We'll all understand that eventually. Can we not understand it now?"

  "Oh, stop repeating that gardener's mumbo-jumbo."

  "I can't bear telling Hannah Mitchell. She's so proud of her son going to do law like his father." Sara Barry's pretty face pouted. Ladies" lunches didn't look so good from this viewpoint.

  "What kind of job?" Derek Barry said.

  And Quentin knew that Brother Rooney had advised him well. Eventually was now.

  He worked first in a seaside cafe south of Dublin, then an Italian restaurant in the city. Then he got a kitchen and bar job in one of the big hotels. This meant antisocial hours, so he moved out of his parents" home and got a bed-sitter. His father didn't seem to notice or care. And his mother was vague and confused about it all.

  And eventually he went for an interview in Haywards store where they needed someone in their restaurant. He was interviewed by Harold Hayward, one of the many cousins who worked in the family firm. This was much smarter than the other places he had worked. More like home, in fact, where he had loved helping his mother with her dinner parties.

  And this is exactly what Quentin Barry did, imitate his ow n mother's stylish presentation. Soon there were heavy linen napkins, good bone
china, and the best of silverware all on display.

  He suggested special afternoon teas, with warm scones dripping in butter, served with little bowls of clotted cream and berries to spread on top . . .

  He presided over it all as if he loved being there and as if it were his own little kingdom which he had created.

  His mother was not best pleased. Quite a lot of the ladies she lunched with went to Haywards. None of their sons worked at tables.

  "You could tell them I'm serving my time until I open my own place," Quentin suggested.

  I could, I suppose," his mother said doubtfully.

  He was shocked. He had been making a joke, and she took it seriously. What was so awful about doing a job he liked? Good, honest work. Sitting around over coffee afterwards, discussing how to make the place even better. His beautiful mother did not

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  call him the Light of her Life or Sweet One these days. Possibly he had given all that up when he had passed on being an accountant.

  From time to time, Quentin went to see Brother Rooney back at his old school. He brought the man a packet of cigarettes and they would sit on a carved wooden seat or in the greenhouse. The old man with the pale, watery blue eyes would point out proudly some of the changes there had been since Quentin's last visit. The dramatic difference it had made cutting that hedge right back; there were magical things under it that no one had ever seen and now they were flowering away once they had been given the light.

  "Did you miss girls when you came here?" Quentin asked him one day.

  "Don't they have girls now?" The school had become coeducational in the last couple of years. It had been a big change.

  "No, I meant girlfriends. Did you miss that side of things?"

  "No, not at all," Brother Rooney said. Tunny, but it never bothered me at all. I never had a girlfriend, couldn't take to it."

  "Would you have preferred fellows, do you think?" Quentin knew the old man wouldn't be offended.

  "Divil a bit of it, neither one nor the other, a kind of a eunuch, I suppose. But you know, Quentin, that's not as big a loss as people might think."

  I suppose it's a positive benefit, if you're in a religious order and taken a vow of chastity," Quentin smiled at him.

  "No, I didn't mean that at all. I meant like if you're not taken up by desire for people then you can see beauty more around you. I see all kinds of colours and textures in flowers and trees that I don't think other fellows see at all." He seemed pleased with himself over the way attributes had been handed out. Some got this, some got that.

  "You're one of the happiest people I know, Brother Rooney."

  "And if you won't be offended and take it the wrong way, I think you're quite like me, Quentin. You see beauty in things too, and you have great enthusiasms. It does my heart good to hear you talking about that restaurant you run."

  "Oh, I don't run it, Brother. I only work there."

  "Well, you sound as if you did, and that's a great thing."

  "Will you come in and see me there one day?"

  I'd feel out of place in a fancy restaurant like that. They'd be looking at my nails and everything."

  "They would not. Come in and see me one day."

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  But Quentin knew that Brother Rooney would not make the journey from the garden where he lived and would probably die without ever visiting him. He wondered, was the old Brother right about Quentin being like him? A eunuch, interested in neither men nor women? It could very possibly be true. Anyway, there was no time to think about it today. The restaurant was full.

  The legendary afternoon teas were a huge success; tiny warmed scones with a serving of cream and raspberry jam were disappearing rapidly from trolleys. There was hardly room for all the customers.

  "Move that old tramp on, Quentin, will you?" Harold Hayward the manager said with a wave at a shabby man in the corner.

  "He's not a tramp. He's just a bit untidy," Quentin protested. Perhaps Brother Rooney had been right and this was not the place for a man with grimy hands.

  "Move him on anyway. He's only had a pot of tea in the last hour and there's a line forming at the door."

  Quentin went to the table. The man looked up at him from a sheaf of papers. A near-empty teapot sat on the table. Harold the manager had been right. This was not a customer from whom they would make much money this afternoon. But it didn't seem a reason to move him on.

  Quentin smiled apologetically at the man, who was in his sixties. "I'm sorry to inconvenience you, sir, but as you can see, people are standing in a long queue waiting for tables."

  "Are you asking me to get out?" He had bushy eyebrows, a red weather-beaten face and a slightly Australian accent.

  "Certainly not! I just wondered, would you mind if I helped you move your papers so that we could let other people share your table?"

  "He asked you to move me on, didn't he?" The old man jerked his head at where Harold Hayward stood watching.

  "Now we have room for those two ladies who both have walking sticks. They will appreciate it. May I bring them over?" Quentin was charm itself. He replaced the teapot with a fresh one at no extra charge.

  The old man outstayed three sets of people who were brought to his table. At the end of the day he asked Quentin if he was part of the Hayward family himself.

  "Alas, no," he smiled apologetically. "Just a labourer in the field, as they say."

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  "Why do you say "alas"? They can't be any great shakes as a family, judging by the face of the guy who looks as if he swallowed four lemons."

  Harold Hayward did indeed look a bit sour.

  "Oh, I suppose I meant it would have made life much easier for me if I could have joined the family firm. My father is an accountant and he had my name on a door in his place, but I couldn't face it. At least Harold's family are pleased with him."

  The old man came in regularly after that and he always sat at one of Quentin's tables. His name was Toby, shortened to Tobe. He had travelled the world, he said, and seen wonderful things. "Have you travelled?" he asked Quentin.

  "No. My problem was that since I decided not to go in with my father, I was so determined to make a living, I never gave myself time to go anywhere. I'd love to see the colours in Provence or in Tuscany, and I'd love to go to North Africa. One day, maybe," he smiled sadly.

  "Don't leave it too late, Quentin."

  "Eventually should be now," Quentin said, thinking of old Brother Rooney.

  "There was never a truer word said." Tobe nodded his head vigorously.

  There was no doubt that he looked a lot shabbier than the rest of the clientele. Sometimes Quentin would tell him there was this miracle stain remover he had discovered, and when Harold Hayward was not looking, he would attack a particularly noticeable stain on Tobe's chest. Once he handed him a comb and another time he gave him elastic bands to hold back his frayed cuffs. He didn't know why he did this, probably because he wanted to prove Harold Hayward wrong in his attitude. Also, he knew he wasn't offending Tobe, who was totally unaware that he looked rather eccentric and was perfectly agreeable to being brought courteously more into the mainstream.

  And work was becoming Quentin's life. He still had few friends apart from the pleasant and casual relationships with those he worked with and served.

  His kindness did not go unnoticed. Even his fellow staff were aware of how well he got on with the customers.

  "You're very warm to people," Brenda Brennan said to him one day.

  She was one of their part-time staff, but a superior girl, cool and

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  elegant, calm in a crisis and always perfectly capable of dealing with whatever the day might pitch at them.

  He wished she would take a permanent job there but she told him that she and her husband had dreams of owning their own place.

  "That was a nice gesture," she said to him when she had seen him give the odd refill to Tobe w
ithout charging.

  "Lord, Brenda, it's only hot water and a teabag," Quentin said. "He's happy here watching people come and go. I like his company. You should hear him talk about those orange and purple sunrises they have out in Australia."

  "I wonder what sent him out there all those years ago," Brenda said.

  "Probably his family." Quentin was thoughtful. "He never talks about them and it's our families who usually upset us most."

  His own father and mother barely spoke to each other now. On the few occasions when he went there to try and cook a lunch, the atmosphere was intolerable. Tobe may have gone through something like that years ago. Quentin wondered where he ate when he did eat. He obviously couldn't afford the prices in Hay wards.

  One night by accident he found out. There was such a bad mood in his family home, with his mother retiring to bed and his father sighing and saying he would go to his club, that Quentin had left quietly.

  He didn't think that either of them were really aware that he had left. He went to a cafe called Mick's on a corner where he often bought chips on his way home from the cinema, but had never sat down to have a meal.

  Beans on toast, fried eggs and chips, two sausages and a spoon of mashed potatoes and peas. That was the choice at Mick's. The place smelled of cooking fat, nobody wiped down the tables, the lino on the floor was torn and yet something about the place itself was enchanting. It was very handy to get at on a corner of a busy street but a little oasis when you went into its cobbled courtyard and closed the door. It was as if the world slowed down there.

  Quentin saw Brenda the waitress and her husband Patrick, a serious guy, deep in convers ation over their beans and toast. Then he saw Tobe with his plate of sausages, egg and chips.

  Tobe waved him over. "If you're not meeting anyone ...?"

  "No, indeed, I'd be happy to have your company." Quentin sat down with the older man and they talked about this and that.