Maeve Binchy

by The Quentins (Lit)

  It would be so lonely without Aidan, and he would be lonely too. But there was no point in trying to get him under her mother's roof. The protest was too strong.

  Brenda had been to see Nora's mother yesterday.

  As always, Mrs O"Donoghue sighed and said it was such a pity that Nora hadn't turned out like her friend. Properly married, earning a decent living.

  "Very selfish, of course, she and her husband not having a family just so that they could get on in their careers."

  "Perhaps they tried and the Lord didn't send them any children," said Nora, who knew just how hard they had tried.

  Her mother sniffed.

  "And I hear Helen was here."

  "She hasn't been here for days," Nora's mother said.

  Hard to know which of them to believe.

  Helen had said she was leaving a letter for Nora on the dresser. Nora read it. The usual stuff about how Mother was failing every

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  day, some accommodation must be reached, the rest of them had proper homes and families ...

  There was also another couple of letters. They were about Mother's health. Nora took them down to read. One was a typed letter from a Ms K. Doyle, matron of a large hospital, responding to a request to know about the availability of in-home carers.

  Nora's heart soared. She always knew that her sisters must have planned for her mother's care. But it was good to see it proved.

  Ms Doyle had offered them several options but suggested first that their mother's health should be properly assessed so that her needs could be established. Then, oddly, there was a photocopy of the letter that Helen must have sent back.

  Nora stood there reading.

  Thank you for your concern. I am at a loss to know exactly who it was that contacted you, possibly my sister Nora who has been abroad a lot and is very unbalanced. She doesn't realise that our mother is a very strong, fit, seventy-five-year old, well able to look after herself. Like all elderly people left on their own, she sometimes suffers from the need for company. But now that Nora has, we think, returned to Ireland permanently, she might well spend overnights with my mother which would get her out of another unsuitable situation and kill many birds with one stone. So there is no question of us needing any help now or in the foreseeable future.

  I am sorry that you have been bothered in this regard by my sister, who undoubtedly meant well but who, as you can see, has little grasp of the situation. I am surprised that she asked you to reply to me, but glad that I was able to set you right on this.

  Nora has always been a great problem to this family. We don't suggest that she live full-time with our mother as Nora has no social skills and is unable to be a companion for anyone. Still, the night-time company should surely benefit both of them.

  Thank you again for your courteous and helpful letter.

  Nora sat for a long time with the letter in her hand. Surely her sister had not intended her to read it. It must have been sent in error. It must have been. Helen would surely not want her to see what she had written. That Nora was unfit, without social skills,

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  that Mother was fit and strong, needing no caring, that the family was trying to rescue Nora from an unsuitable situation.

  But if Helen had not left her this letter on the high shelf of the dresser, then who had?

  For a long moment Nora thought about her friend Brenda, dear, dear, Brenda Carissima, who had been so loyal over the decades, and who had asked her to wait a week. Just one week. But even Brenda couldn't have set this up.

  This was a real person ... Ms K. Doyle, her name was on the hospital's letterhead. This was Helen's handwriting. Not even wily, cool Brenda could have accomplished this.

  Nora went back home to Aidan.

  "My week is up, so I'm telling you that I'm going to spend every single night with you until I die," she said.

  "This was what was worrying you?" Aidan was puzzled.

  "Yes, I thought I might have to spend every night on my mother's sofa."

  "We'd have been very uncomfortable on a sofa," he agreed.

  "No, you'd have been grand, you'd have been here," Nora said, stroking his face.

  "I wouldn't have been at all grand without you," he said softly.

  "What was your news for me?" she asked.

  I saw Nell about t he divorce. She said fine, but that we're far too old to be getting married at our age, but fine."

  "She is right, of course," Nora said thoughtfully.

  "She is not right. We will be married, you and I, with all our friends there to celebrate our good luck and happiness," said Aidan with spirit.

  "Aidan, you're wonderful but we can't think of it, we haven't any money, and I've been saving for it all the time."

  "But I'll have the money."

  "How can you save, Aidan?"

  "Well, this man Richardson, whose kids I teach. He's a big financial adviser and he told me what to do with my money. In fact, I don't take my fee at all from him. Now each week he invests it for me and it's well over doubled. Imagine that." "Imagine!" She looked at him with great love.

  "And now about you. Was this big decision about your mother's sofa easy to make?"

  In the end it took about ten seconds," Nora said. I have to tell just one more person, Carissima."

  "Will she be surpm "You have no idea i

  pleased, but I will pounds o t

  surprised."

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  "Will she be surprised?"

  "You have no idea with Brenda Brennan," Nora said. "She'll be pleased, but I will go to my grave wondering whether or not she's surprised."

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  Homecoming

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  Fhy did you call the place Quentins?" Mon asked one morning at coffee break.

  "That's his name, the guy who owns it." Brenda was surprised that the young Australian girl didn't know this. She was so bright, so quick.

  "I thought you two owned it." Mon "was very confused. "You mean, you could be given the push, just like me?"

  "Oh, very unlike you," Brenda laughed. "He knows we are reliable. You're still proving it."

  "Does he know about me?" Mon wanted to be part of the team.

  "Not too much detail, but yes, he would know that we hired you and we're pleased. Now is that all right?"

  "Does he ever come over and see the place?"

  "No, hardly ever, once he got us in to run it. Sometimes he sends friends and then lets us know that they thought it was all going fine."

  "He must trust you utterly."

  "Well, we send him the accounts regularly, but you know, I think he hardly reads them," Brenda said wonderingly. "And I haven't heard from him in a long time. I think I'll send him a cheery message if there's time today."

  "What makes you think there's going to be time today? There never is any other day." Mon rinsed her coffee cup and went out to check the faultless dining tables in Quentins Restaurant.

  By chance, Quentin's father came in to lunch that day. He had

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  now retired from the accountancy practice where he had always hoped that his son would succeed him. Distanced and confused by the boy's wish to go abroad and paint, he was grimly pleased that the dream of being a great artist had somehow eluded his son.

  "Do you hear any news from Morocco?" Brenda asked quietly as she settled the older man at his table.

  "You'd hear more than I do," Quentin's father grunted.

  "Absolutely not. He's the employer you dream of. Not a word except a raise at Christmas, no wonder we get arrogant, Patrick and I, and think we own it ourselves."

  "By rights you should own it. Didn't the pair of you make it what it is?"

  "No, your son had the dream, the idea. We just helped him carry it out."

  Brenda and Patrick never would have been able to raise the capital to buy the place, but it didn't matter. As long as Quentin lived his peacef
ul life in the hills of Morocco and let them at it, they had no worries. Sometimes they wondered what would happen if Quentin should die suddenly. Still, every day they worked there, their reputation increased. Brenda and Patrick Brennan would not be long unemployed in Dublin.

  "My son gets many compliments for this place, but they should all be addressed to you and your husband," the old man said gruffly.

  "They are, Mr Barry, and you are kind enough to send us a lot of marvellous clients ... so please know we are very grateful." She moved away gracefully.

  Over the years she had learned just how much people like to be recognised, acknowledged, but not monopolised by restaurant staff. She wished that Quentin would come back just for a week, sit at the discreet table in the booth and see how the restaurant that bore his name carried on while he lived and painted in the hot African sun.

  She would telephone Quentin now, this very afternoon. She needed to keep him up to speed about the documentary anyway. She had written when it was first suggested and asked his permission but as they had expected he wrote back to say that the matter was entirely in their hands, he knew they would make the right choice.

  She reached for the telephone.

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  He was having his early-evening mint tea served in a glass held by a metal container. One of the little boys in Fatama's corner shop brought it along at five-thirty every evening. Like the people who sent him bowls of vegetables scrubbed clean to make soup, or baskets of luscious fruit wiped lest an insect or a bruise appear. They were so good to him. Quentin could have never asked for kinder people, but he had an urge to go home. Just to see was it home or another country, a different world? That was the moment she rang. The cool unhurried voice of Brenda Brennan.

  They had just served 120 spectacular lunches, his father had been in, and one of the staff, Mon, a laughing young waitress could not believe that they didn't actually own the place themselves, and that there was a Quentin.

  "Did you tell her I'd be no good to her?" he laughed as he always did about his sexuality.

  "No, I did not. You are good to her providing her with a great restaurant to train in. Anyway, she doesn't want you, she's landed one of our most prestigious customers from the bank next door."

  He didn't ask why Brenda called. She would come to it.

  I was thinking, would you like to come back for a visit, Quentin? Just sit and observe us secretly. We'd love to show off for you."

  "You're psychic ... I was just thinking of it."

  They fixed a date. It was for a few weeks ahead.

  Til leave it to you to tell your father about your plans." Brenda was diplomatic.

  "Thank you. I'll take my mother to choose a hat one day and I'll probably call Father the day before I leave. Less is best. Do you feel that too about families?" Quentin was always polite and never intrusive. Nobody minded answering any of his direct questions.

  "Well, my parents are mainly fine, but then I always had plenty of sisters to share them with, unlike you. Sort of shared the load."

  "Yes, there was just me, a big disappointment to them both."

  "Your father's in here very regularly, Quentin. He can't be all that disappointed in you. In fact, he boasts of being your father."

  "Imagine." There were very bitter tones in his voice.

  "Will it just be you?" Brenda asked. Once there had been a delightful young man, Katar.

  "I'll be on my own," he said.

  Til make sure Patrick has something from our poor imitation of Moroccan cuisine when you come," she promised. "We do a nice

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  orange and cinnamon salad with a chicken tajine, but it's not quite exotic enough."

  "Probably quite exotic enough for Dublin," Quentin laughed.

  "You have been away for a long time," she said.

  She talked to Patrick about it that night.

  "You should have said a couscous," he complained. "He'd know we were trying, at least."

  "He's not coming home to examine the food," Brenda said.

  "What for, then?"

  "I don't know." She didn't know. It seemed too odd to say she thought he was coming home to say goodbye.

  He came in exactly on time and smiled warmly as he was introduced to the staff. A tall, slight man, forty-something, still handsome, tanned, but tired-looking.

  "Where did he get the money to own a place like this?" Mon whispered to Yan.

  "I heard it was from some inheritance," Yan said.

  "But who? Not his awful father, for sure." Mon shook her head. "Look at his face. He looks like a sort of saint really, doesn't he?"

  You couldn't speak softly enough to avoid detection by Brenda Brennan, who could, after all, lip-read. "Quentin's not exactly a saint," she said to them pleasantly. "But he came by the place legally. From an old friend."

  She watched their mouths drop open with the shock of being overheard and smiled to herself. It had been so useful, that little trick, she'd learned so very much over the years. Quentin saw her smile when she came back to the table.

  "I'd love to know what you're thinking," he said gently.

  "I might even tell you later. Now I have to get the show on the road."

  Brenda made sure that Quentin had two kinds of bottled water. She sensed he would not drink wine. She ordered a tray of appetisers. Something he could pick from. She had seen enough people come and go to know that he was not going to eat very much. Quentin Barry was a sick man.

  He ate in the booth and watched his mother come to lunch with three of her friends. Sara Barry had aged in a way that she would

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  not have enjoyed had she been able to observe it properly. She looked puffy and rather silly. He would have advised her against the light pastel colours and the fussy jewellery.

  Quentin's mother had no idea that she was being closely watched from the discreet little booth across the restaurant. All she cared about was that the four women at her table realised just how much she spent on clothes. She talked to them about the wisdom of having an account at Haywards store, it saved so much trouble in the end. You just waved your card and that was that, they were so obliging.

  Quentin felt sorry for her. The staff in Haywards would be equally helpful and obliging had she waved a credit card, a chequebook or a fistful of notes. He had worked there for long enough to know. All those years before his luck had changed. He knew Mr George, Mr Harold and Miss Lucy and how little respect they had for card holders above anyone else.

  And he thought back on how his future had been written for him through the generosity of Mr Toby Hayward, who still wrote to him from Australia and who had given him this strange, unexpected start and a chance to own his own restaurant.

  It had all been so mysterious. Quentin had been told that his best policy was to ask no deep questions.

  Katar had said the restaurant had been given to him by God, some vague Irish god who knew Quentin was unhappy and wanted him to have a business that would eventually give him the funds to go out to Morocco. But then, Katar was the sunniest person Quentin ever knew.

  Ever had known. Impossible to believe that he would never hear that laugh or see those dancing eyes again. He had brought Katar to this very table once. Quentin smiled as he remembered the occasion.

  I would like to run around and tell them all at every table that this is ours, ours. Then I would like there to be a trumpet sound .. . ta-ra, ta-ra . .. and you would stand up and we would all sing .. . "For Quentin, he ees the jolly fine fellow"."

  Katar would have liked that, and would have seen nothing silly or inappropriate in it. Only a celebration, like his whole happy life had been. Even the last months of his illness.

  "It's so good for me, I have you to look after me, to tell me stories in the dark night. Who will do the same for you?"

  "Ah, there are plenty who will." Quentin had put cold rose water on Katar's hot brow.

  "Well, you must go and find them, be ready to ask them, let
them know you need help. Not the false braveness, swear to me. I will know, I will be looking at you."

  "I swear, Katar," Quentin had said. "No false braveness."

  But oddly, when the time did come, Quentin didn't need any friend. He just looked at the beauty of the hot country he had come to think of as his own. Lying calmly and resting there brought him peace. Life didn't seem so huge and important somehow. You were just part of a process, like mountain ranges and sandstorms and the blossoms that came in springtime. Next week he would be back there and he would wait. It would not be frightening. But first, he had decisions to make here.

  About his father and mother there would be few problems. They had already said goodbye to him in a meaningful sense, long, long ago.

  "Mother, can I take you out and buy you a hat?" Quentin asked on the phone.

  "I'm not going out to some awful souk in Marrakesh."

  "I'm in Dublin, Mother."

  "That's good." She didn't sound excited or pleased.

  "So?"

  "So, of course I'd love a hat," Sara Barry said. She didn't say she would love to see her son, but then she didn't know he was dying.

  "Did you know that Quentin's in Dublin?" Sara asked her husband that night.

  "No, but he'll call from the airport before he leaves, that's what he usually does." Derek Barry barely looked up from his newspaper.

  "That's because you have nothing to talk to him about," she criticised.

  "Yes, that's true, unlike you who can compare shades of lipstick with him after all." Derek spoke bitterly.

  "See what I mean, ready to pick a fight where none exists."

  "Oh, my fights with Quentin are long over," Derek Barry sighed.

  Quentin had one more decision to make.