Minding Frankie

by Maeve Binchy

  Molly said the dress could have been designed just for her. “I’m not very up-to-date in fashion,” she said, “but you’ll certainly stop them in their tracks in this one.”

  Lisa smiled with pleasure. It did look good.

  Katie treated her to a wash and blow-dry and she set out for the party in high good spirits. April was there in a very official capacity, welcoming people in.

  “Great dress,” April said to Lisa.

  “Thanks,” Lisa said. “It’s vintage,” and went to find Anton.

  “You look absolutely beautiful,” he said when he caught sight of her.

  “It’s your night. How’s it going?” Lisa asked.

  “Well, I’ve been working for two days on all these canapés but you wouldn’t think it was my night. April believes it’s hers. She’s insisting on being in every picture.” Just then a photographer approached them.

  “And who’s this?” he asked, nodding at Lisa.

  “My brilliant designer and stylist, Lisa Kelly,” responded Anton instantly.

  The photographer wrote it down, and out of the corner of her eye Lisa could see April’s disapproval. She smiled all the more broadly.

  “You’re really gorgeous, you know.” Anton was admiring Lisa openly. “And you wore my colors too.”

  She savored the praise. She knew there would be times when she would play this scene over and over again in her mind. But she mustn’t dwell on herself and her dress.

  Lisa blessed Noel and his cousin Emily’s thrift shop. She had paid so little for this outfit and she was one of the most elegant women in the room. More photographers were approaching her. She must try to look as though she wanted to deflect attention from herself.

  “There’s a great crowd here,” Lisa said. “Did all the people you wanted turn up?” Across the room she saw that April had a face like a sour lemon. “But I mustn’t monopolize you,” she added as she slipped away, knowing that he was looking after her as she went to mingle with the other guests.

  Miranda was slightly drunk.

  “I think it’s game, set and match to you, Lisa,” she said unsteadily.

  “What do you mean?” Lisa asked innocently.

  “Oh, I think you’ve knocked April into Also-Ran.…”

  “What?”

  “It’s a saying, you know, in a horse race. There’s the winner and there’s Also-Ran, meaning the ones that didn’t win.”

  “I know what it means,” Lisa said, “but what do you mean?”

  “I think you have the single, undivided attention of Anton Moran,” Miranda said. It was a complicated phrase to finish and she sat down after the effort.

  Lisa smiled. What should she do now? Try to outstay April or leave early? Hard though it was to do, she decided to leave early.

  His disappointment was honey to her soul.

  “You’re never going? I thought you were going to sit down with me afterwards and have a real postmortem.”

  “Nonsense! You’ll have lots of people. April, for example.”

  “Oh, God, no. Lisa, rescue me. She’ll be talking of column inches of coverage and her biological clock.”

  Lisa laughed aloud. “No, Anton, of course she won’t. See you soon. Call me and tell me how it all went.” And she was gone.

  There was a bus at the end of the lane and she ran to catch it. It was full of tired people going home late from work. She felt like a glorious butterfly in her smart dress and high heels, while they all looked drab and colorless. She had drunk two cocktails, the man she loved had told her that she was gorgeous and wanted her to stay.

  It was only nine o’clock at night. She was a lucky, lucky girl. She must never forget this.

  Chapter Five

  For Stella Dixon the time just flew by: there was so much to see to every day. There was a lawyer to talk to, a nurse from the health authorities, another nurse—this time from the operating theater—who tried to explain the procedure (though Stella was having none of it; she was far too busy, she said). Once she got her anesthetic “that would be curtains” for her. While she was still here she had to try to deal with everything.

  Her doctor, Declan Carroll, came in to see her regularly. She asked after his wife.

  “Maybe the babies will get to know each other,” Stella had said wistfully one day.

  “Maybe. We’ll have to work on it.” He was a very pleasant young man.

  “You mean you will have to work on it,” she said with a smile that broke his heart.

  For Noel there weren’t enough hours in the day either. Anytime that he was not slaving in Hall’s, going to twelve-step meetings or catching up on his studies, he spent surfing the net for advice on how to cope with a new baby. He had moved into his new place in Chestnut Court and was busy making preparations for her arrival.

  He had AA meetings every day, since the thought that most things could be sorted out by several pints and three whiskeys was always with him. He managed to stay away from the bar at his father’s retirement party. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place as they presented a watch to Charlie that he said he would wear every day.

  Noel began to wonder how he had ever found time to drink.

  “Maybe I’m nearly over it,” he said hopefully to Malachy, whom he had met on his first visit and who was now his sponsor at AA.

  “I don’t want to be downbeat, but we all feel this in the early days,” Malachy warned him.

  “It’s not really early days. I haven’t had a drink for twenty-one days,” Noel said proudly.

  “Fair play to you, but I am four years dry and yet if something went seriously wrong in my life I know only too well where I would want to find a solution. It would solve everything for a couple of hours and then I’d have to start all over again … as hard as the first time, only worse.…”

  For Brian Flynn the days flew by as well. He adapted perfectly to his new living quarters and began to think that he had always lived over a busy hair salon. Garry cut his hair for him and tamed the red-gray thatch into a reasonable shape. They said he was better than any security firm and that the fact that he lived there was a deterrent to intruders.

  He left each morning for the immigrant center where he worked; as he passed through the salon he encountered many ladies in varying degrees of disarray and marveled to himself how they endured so much in the cause of beauty. He would greet them pleasantly, and Katie always introduced him as the Reverend Lodger Upstairs.

  “You could hear confessions here, Brian, but I think you’d be electrified by what they’d tell you,” Katie said cheerfully.

  She had discovered that even in the middle of a recession, women were more anxious than ever to have their hair done. It kept them sane, somehow, and feeling in control.

  · · ·

  For Lisa Kelly the time crawled by.

  She was finding it difficult to get decisions made about her designs for Anton’s restaurant, as a decision meant money being spent. Although the restaurant was open and full to bursting every night, there was still no verdict on whether to use her new logos and style on the tableware. Instead, she was concentrating on her course-work and giving Noel a hand.

  Noel had undergone some amazing conversion; when Lisa heard about his plan to take on a baby, she thought it was a fantasy. She had felt sure he would never be able to cope with a job, a college course and a newborn: it was too much to ask from one person, especially someone who was weak and shy like Noel. However, she was beginning to change her mind.

  Noel had surprised her, and in a way she almost envied him. He was so dedicated to all that he was doing. Everything was new for him. He had a whole new life ahead, while Lisa felt that it was forever more of the same. Of course it was all still theoretical; the baby wasn’t even born yet. But he was preparing as much as he could to be a father. His notes always had lists scribbled in the margins: nappy-rash cream, baby wipes, they would say. Four bottles, bottle brush, nipples, steriliser …

  Her parents were still living in t
heir icy, uncaring way, sharing a roof but not a bedroom, not a dining table, not any leisure time. They had no interest in Lisa or her life, any more than they cared how Katie fared with Garry in the salon. It was just casual indifference, not amazing hostility, that existed between them as a couple. One had only to come into a room for the other to leave it.

  Lisa had never been able to pin Anton down: there was always this conference and that sales meeting and this television appearance and that radio interview. She had never seen him alone. The pictures of her and Anton together had given way to shots of him with any number of beautiful girls; though she would have heard if he had any new real girlfriend. It would have been in the Sunday papers. That was the way Anton attracted publicity—he gave free drinks to columnists and photographers and they always snapped him with several beautiful women and gave the impression that he was busy making up his mind among them all.

  And it wasn’t as if he had abandoned her or was ignoring her, Lisa reminded herself. A day didn’t pass without a text message from Anton. Life was so busy, he would text. They had a rock band in last night, they were going to do a society wedding, a charity auction, a new tasting menu, a week of Breton specialties. Nowhere any mention of Lisa or her designs and plans.

  Then, just as she was about to face the fact that he had left her, he wrote about this simply beautiful restaurant he had heard of in Honfleur, where the seafood was to die for. They must sneak away there for a weekend of self-indulgence soon. No date was fixed—just the word “soon,” and when she was starting to think that it meant “never,” he said that there was a trade fair next month in Paris that they could both go to and fish for ideas and then run off to Honfleur. They might even dream up a whole Normandy season for the restaurant while they were there.

  It was an unsettling life, to say the least.

  Lisa couldn’t seem to get on with other work. She kept changing or improving the proposals she had done for Anton—ideas that had never been discussed or even acknowledged.

  She was doing all right at school. Nothing like Noel, of course. That man was like something possessed. He said that he made do with four and a half hours’ sleep. He laughed it off, saying that he would probably get less when the new baby arrived. He was so calm and accepting about it all.

  “Did you love her, this Stella?” Lisa had asked.

  “I think ‘love’ is too strong a word. I like her a lot,” he replied, struggling to be honest.

  “She must love you, then, to leave you in charge,” Lisa said.

  “No, I don’t think she does. I think she trusts me. That’s all.”

  “Well, that’s a big part of life. If you trust someone, you’re halfway there,” Lisa said.

  “Do you trust this Anton you talk about?”

  “Not really,” Lisa said, with a face that closed the door on any further conversation about the topic.

  Noel shrugged. He was off anyway up to the hospital to visit Stella.

  Three days later, Declan Carroll was in the delivery room holding Fiona’s hand as she groaned and whimpered.

  “Great, girl. Just three more.… Just three …”

  “How do you know it’s only three?” gasped Fiona, red-faced, her hair damp and stuck to her forehead.

  “Trust me, I’m a doctor,” Declan said.

  “You’re not a woman, though,” Fiona said, teeth gritted and preparing for another push.

  But he was right—there were only three more. Then the head of his son appeared and he began to cry with relief and happiness.

  “He’s here,” he said, placing the baby in her arms. He took a photograph of them both and a nurse took a picture of all three of them.

  “He’ll hate this when he grows up,” Fiona said, and John Patrick Carroll let out a wail in agreement.

  “Only for a while and then he’ll love it,” said Declan, who had had his fair share of a mother who showed pictures of him to total strangers at the Laundromat where she worked.

  He left the delivery ward of St. Brigid’s and headed for oncology. He knew what time Stella was going down for surgery and he wanted to be there as moral support.

  They were just putting her on the trolley.

  “Declan!” she said, pleased.

  “Had to come and wish you well,” he said.

  “You know Noel. And this is his cousin Emily.” Stella was totally at ease, as if she were at a party instead of about to make the last journey of her life.

  Declan knew Emily already, as she came regularly to the group practice where he worked. She filled in at the desk as a receptionist or made the coffee or cleaned the place. It was never defined exactly what she did except that everyone knew the place would close down without her. She also helped his mother in the Laundromat from time to time. No job seemed too menial for her, even though she had a degree in art history. He tried to think about her as they stood in a little tableau waiting for Stella to be wheeled to the operating theater. It helped to concentrate on the living rather than on Stella, who would not be in their number for much longer.

  “Any news of your baby yet, Declan?” Stella asked.

  Declan decided against telling her of his great happiness with his brand-new son. It would make things even worse for the woman who would never see her own child.

  “No, not a sign,” he lied.

  “Remember they are to be friends,” Stella urged him.

  “Oh, that’s a promise,” said Declan.

  Just at that moment the ward sister came in. She smiled when she saw Declan.

  “Congratulations, Doctor, we hear you’ve had a beautiful baby boy!”

  He looked like something trapped in the headlights of an approaching car. He could not deny his son, nor could he pretend to be surprised when it would be known that he was there for the birth.

  He had to face it.

  “Sorry, Stella. I didn’t want to be gloating.”

  “No, you wouldn’t ever do that,” she said. “A boy! Imagine!”

  “Yes, we didn’t know. Not until he was born.”

  “And is he perfect?”

  “Thank God.”

  And then she was wheeled out of the ward, leaving Noel, Emily and Declan behind.

  Frances Stella Dixon Lynch was delivered by cesarean section on October 9 at seven p.m. She was tiny, but perfect. Ten tiny, perfect fingers, ten tiny, perfect toes and a shock of hair on her tiny, perfect head. She frowned at the world around her and wrinkled her tiny nose before opening her mouth and wailing as if it were already all too much.

  Her mother died twenty minutes later.

  The first person Noel telephoned was Malachy. “I can’t live through this night without a drink,” he told him. Malachy said he would come straight to the hospital. Noel was not to move until he arrived.

  The women in the ward were full of sympathy. They arranged that he get tea and biscuits, which tasted like sawdust.

  There was a small bundle of papers in an elastic band on her locker. The word NOEL was on the outside. He read them through with blurred eyes. One was an envelope with FRANKIE written on it. The others were factual: her instructions about the funeral, her wishes that Frankie be raised in the Roman Catholic faith for as long as it seemed sensible to her. And a note dated last night.

  Noel, tell Frankie that I wasn’t all bad and that once I knew she was on the way I did the very best for her. Tell her that I had courage at the end and I didn’t cry my eyes out or anything. And tell her that if things had been different you and I would both have been there to look after her. Oh—and that I’ll be looking out for her from up there. Who knows? Maybe I will.

  Thanks again,

  Stella

  Noel looked down at the tiny baby with tears in his eyes. “Your mam didn’t want to leave you, little one,” he whispered. “She wanted to stay with you, but she had to go away. It’s just you and me now. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but we’ll manage. We’ve got to look after each other.” The baby looked at him sol
emnly as though concentrating on his words in order to commit them to memory.

  · · ·

  Baby Frances was pronounced healthy. A collection of people came to visit her as she lay there in her little crib. Noel, who took time off from work, came every day. Moira Tierney, the social worker, showed up at odd times, asking too many questions. Emily brought Charles and Josie to see their grandchild, and they visibly melted at the sight of the baby. They seemed to have completely forgotten their earlier condemnation of sex without marriage, and Josie was even seen to lift the child in her arms and pat the baby’s back.

  Lisa Kelly visited a couple of times, as did Malachy. Mr. Hall came from Noel’s workplace; even Old Man Casey came and said that Noel was a sad loss to his bar. Young Dr. Declan Carroll came in carrying his own son and introduced the babies formally to each other.

  Father Brian Flynn came in and brought Father Kevin Kenny with him. Father Kenny, still on one crutch, was eager to take up his role as hospital chaplain again. He seemed slightly put out that Father Flynn had been so warmly accepted as his replacement. Many people seemed to know him and called him Brian in what Father Kenny thought of as a slightly overfamiliar way. He had obviously been involved in every stage of the unfortunate woman’s pregnancy and the birth of the motherless baby who lay there looking up at them. Father Kenny assumed that they were there to arrange a baptism and started to clear his throat and talk about the technicalities.

  But no, Father Flynn had brushed that away swiftly. The baby’s grandparents were extraordinarily devout people and they would discuss all that sort of thing at a later time.

  Charles and Josie Lynch’s neighbor Muttie Scarlet came to pay his respects to the child. He was in the hospital anyway, he said, on business, and he thought he would take advantage of the occasion to visit the baby.

  And eventually Noel was told that he could take his baby daughter home to his new apartment. It was a terrifying moment. Noel realized that he was about to stop being a visitor and become entirely responsible for this tiny human being. How was he going to remember all the things that needed to be done? Supposing he dropped her? Poisoned her? He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t be responsible for this baby, it was ludicrous to ask him. Stella had been mad, she was ill, she didn’t know what she was doing. Someone else would have to take over, they’d have to find someone else to look after her baby—her baby, nothing to do with him at all. He had a sudden urge to flee, to run down the corridor and out into the street, and to keep on running until the hospital and Stella and Frankie and all of them were just a memory.