Maeve Binchy

by The Quentins (Lit)

  "Wouldn't they be afraid Nora would get a heart attack when she finds the place closed?"

  "No, don't worry."

  The Registrar was a kind man. He knew when he saw a party of only six people, a bride and groom tending towards middle age rather than extreme youth, that a ceremony of great dignity was called for. He looked from one to the other and stressed the importance of the day and the decision they were making in front of all present.

  They thanked him profusely and asked him to join them for afternoon tea in Holly's. He was often invited to join the festivities, but never accepte d. Today for the first time he was tempted. They were so touchingly happy, it made him blow his

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  nose quite a lot. They had obviously travelled a long road to get to this day.

  They drove to Holly's and got a great welcome. Photographs were taken in the garden under the huge trees. Tiny sandwiches and little cream cakes were served. Everyone was very relaxed. But the bride had her eye on her watch.

  "We must be in time for the bookshop," Nora said.

  Brenda was delaying them. "Ah, don't worry. It will start without us ... they'll know we're on the way."

  "How many will there be altogether?" Aidan's daughter Brigid asked. She was in on the whole thing and thought it was so cool. In fact, totally cool.

  "There will be fourteen altogether. I'd have loved to have asked more, but you know ..." Nora said.

  "It's the fourteen important ones anyway, and the others will understand. Don't start fussing, Mrs Dunne." Aidan looked at her with great affection.

  "Oh, God, you put the heart across me, Aidan. I thought your first wife had materialised down here in Wicklow."

  Nick, Sandy and Deirdre arrived together. They had been firmly instructed by Brenda to move among the guests talking and introducing. There were people from a lot of different worlds here tonight, and they needed someone to keep them together. Brenda would have done it effortlessly, but she was needed elsewhere.

  Nick, Sandy and Deirdre got their first drink and began doing their duty, moving around and bringing the little groups together. Getting names and giving them.

  "Aren't you a very lovely person? Are you an actress or a film star?" a man asked Deirdre.

  "No, I'm not. I work in a lab and I'm as cross as a bag of weasels," Deirdre said.

  "And what has a gorgeous girl like you cross?"

  The man was well-dressed, with bristly hair like Derry King's. Of course, it must be one of the painter cousins.

  "Are you Scan or Michael?" she asked.

  I'm Scan. Imagine you having heard of us."

  "Everyone's heard of you. I'm Deirdre."

  "And what's upset you, Deirdre?"

  "I paid four hundred euros for this dress and I look like the wrath of God in it."

  "You do not, you look lovely."

  Deirdre moved and examined herself in the mirror. With a very disappointed face.

  A woman with the most amazingly brassy hair came over and watched her. "It needs a scarf draped over it, something that picks up the colour," she said.

  "A lot of use that is to me to know that now. It looked fine in the shop."

  "Bet they draped a scarf over it for you?"

  "They did, as it happens. I'm Dee, by the way, Ella's friend."

  "I'm Harriet, Nora's friend, and Ella's too. We met when she was going to America."

  "Oh, yes, she told me about you. You sold her a dog collar."

  "I can sell you a scarf now, if you want one. Just wait and I'll get you a selection. I checked my bag in to the cloakroom."

  In minutes Deirdre was transformed.

  Til leave you now. He's one of the best catches in Dublin," Harriet whispered.

  "Who?" Deirdre felt disconnected from everything.

  "Sean Kennedy, rolling in money and he's drooling over you."

  "I'm really meant to be mingling," Deirdre said.

  "I'd say you've mingled enough," advised Harriet.

  When they saw the notice on the door, Nora felt the tears coming down her face. "Oh, Aidan, isn't that desperate? What could they mean, unforeseen circumstances?"

  "They were so sure." Aidan's face was bleak. "And what did they do with the wine and the canapes?"

  "Does it say anything else?" Nora wept.

  Then they found a second note.

  It says the Dunne reception has been transferred eight doors down the street."

  "Which direction?" she sniffed.

  It says to Quentins," Aidan said.

  They looked at the others, who were beaming with delight.

  "But we can't go to Quentins, not on a Saturday night. No, Carissima Brenda, even for a wedding. We can't do that on you."

  Now Brenda had tears in her eyes.

  I've a feeling it's going to be perfectly fine," she said, and led the newlyweds eight doors down the road to Quentins.

  343

  Brigid Dunne had run ahead and when they came in the door, a man at the piano struck up with "Here Comes the Bride", and after that everyone they could ever have wanted to see at their wedding appeared, to hug them.

  Nora's hair was a triumph and her lilac-coloured dress with the dark royal purple chiffon sleeveless coat looked astounding. Harriet had got an immense bargain for her somewhere. No one would ever know how immense, not even the man whose lorry it was meant to have fallen off.

  The twins approached. "We are only allowed to sing two songs. Will we sing them now?"

  "Of course," Nora could hardly speak. Simon and Maud liked things announced.

  "The bride and groom have connections with Italy, what with the bride having lived out there for a long time and her teaching Italian here, so we thought they'd like "Volare"." Everyone in the room seemed to know it and joined in the chorus.

  Maud announced the next song. "It doesn't matter what age you are when you get married, your wedding day is meant to be your best day, so for this couple we are going to sing "True Love"."

  The twins knew all the words, even the bit about the Guardian Angel on High with Nothing to Do. They looked round proudly as they sang. They were making a fine job of this, unlike "Volare", which wasn't even English and everyone had drowned them out. So when they were doing it so well why was everyone weeping unashamedly? Simon and Maud found life more impossible to understand every day.

  "Those two are extraordinary, they break people up all over the place," Cathy said to Tom in the kitchen.

  She had come in to sit down. Three times in the last two weeks she had gone to the hospital, certain that the baby's birth was imminent. Three times they had sent her home saying that there was absolutely no sign of anything. So she hadn't taken much notice of the pains earlier on today. She was so anxious to be at the reception. And she knew the hospital would only send her away again, but there was this pain, well, it wasn't a pain, more a downward dragging feeling. It had come on quite suddenly.

  "Cathy, are you all right?" Tom asked suddenly.

  I must be, I have to be, but .. ."

  "But what?" He was ashen.

  "But I think the baby's coming, Tom," she said.

  Blouse and Mary saw first what was happening. And knew there was no time to get an ambulance or to move them upstairs.

  They moved instead to the storeroom and sat her down in a big armchair. Mary ran to her own quarters for sheets ard towels. Blouse ran into the dining room to get Brenda and Patrick.

  Ella came into the kitchen that moment and took everything in. "Well done, Cathy," she said. "We'll be absolutely fine." Her voice calmed the two, who were holding hands so tightly it looked as if they would never be prised apart.

  "Couldn't be a better place, plenty of boiling water," she soothed. "Tom, get Derry to point out a Brian Kennedy to you. He's actually a doctor. You couldn't be in better hands. Quick now, but don't alarm them."

  Cathy's face was terrified. Mary and Ella calmed her. "You couldn't be safer, Cathy," they begged her.

 
Brenda was with them and then they began to believe it might be true. They leaned over her.

  "Push, Cathy," they all said. The baby's head was there.

  Dr Brian Kennedy said by the time he came in, it was all over. The baby was born. Tom and Cathy had a son.

  That was when Derry had come into the kitchen to find Ella. And the moment was frozen for ever in everyone's lives.

  There should have been the noise of the kitchen, the ovens, the humming of the various appliances. There should have been the sounds of the party in the next room. They definitely should have been heard.

  But they all remembered a moment of total silence before the little lungs of the boy who was going to be called James Muttance Feather gave a cry to say he was safely in the kitchen of Quentins and the world.

  I love you," Cathy said to Tom.

  And Mary said it to Blouse.

  And Patrick Brennan said it to Brenda.

  And Derry and Ella said it to each other at exactly the same time.