Minding Frankie

by Maeve Binchy

  Ennio had said they should have a banner over the table—FELICITAZIONI—TANTI AUGURI—FAITH LISA NOEL: that would be alphabetical order, so nobody could be offended.

  “What does it mean?” Faith asked.

  “Congratulations, best wishes,” Marco said excitedly.

  They were a mixed group, including the two babies, but they all got along very well and there was no pause in the conversation. More and more food and wine kept coming to the table. And finally a great cake arrived, iced in the shape of a mortarboard and scroll.

  People at other tables gathered round to see it.

  “It was iced by Maud,” Marco said proudly.

  “And everyone else.” Maud tried to shrug it off.

  “But mainly by Maud,” Marco insisted.

  And then there was sparkling wine for the toast and a glass of elderflower cordial for Noel. The health of the three successful scholars was drunk to and they were cheered to the echo.

  To everyone’s surprise, Noel stood up.

  “I think that, as the president said earlier, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to our families and friends and that we three should raise a toast to you also. Without you all, we wouldn’t have been able to do all this and have this great graduation day and feast. To our families and friends,” he said.

  Lisa and Faith stood up and all three repeated the toast:

  “To our families and friends.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ania’s baby was almost born in the heart clinic—not quite, but almost. It was too soon.

  Her waters broke during one of the healthy cookery demonstrations and they got her into the maternity wing of St. Brigid’s in the shortest possible time. Later that night the news went around: a baby boy, born prematurely and taken into the special-care baby unit. Everyone was concerned for Carl and Ania: it was going to be a traumatic time for both parents. They had been so anxious throughout the pregnancy, and the worrying wasn’t over yet. They were staying with the tiny baby by his incubator; Carl would come down to the clinic later and tell them what was happening.

  Clara Casey called her ex-husband and asked him to drop by her house.

  “Don’t like the sound of this,” Alan said.

  “Haven’t I done everything you ever asked me: had two babies for you, left you free to follow your heart? I gave you a divorce when you wanted it. I never asked you for a penny.”

  “You got my house,” Alan said.

  “No. If you remember, the house was paid for by a deposit from my mother and every month by a mortgage which I earned. It was always my house, so we won’t go down that road again.”

  “What do you want to talk about if I come over?” He sounded sulky now.

  “Various things … the future … the girls …”

  “The girls!” Alan snorted. “Adi’s off in Peru doing God knows what …”

  “Ecuador, as it happens.”

  “Same difference. And as for Linda, she won’t speak to me if I do get in touch.”

  “That’s because when she told you that she and Nick were going to adopt, you said that you personally would never raise another man’s son yourself. That was helpful.…”

  “You’re hard to please, Clara. If I am honest it’s wrong, if I’m not honest, it’s wrong.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Clara said and hung up.

  He looked older and shabbier than before. A succession of new ladies later, he was now temporarily without a partner. Alan, who always prided himself on having women iron his shirts, looked vaguely down at heel.

  “You look wonderful,” he said, as he said to almost every woman almost all the time. Clara ignored him.

  “Coffee?” she suggested.

  “Or something stronger even?” he asked.

  “No, you can’t handle drink like you used to. You start crawling over me when you’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, and I certainly don’t want that.”

  “You liked it well enough once,” he muttered.

  “Yes, that’s true, but in those days I believed everything you said.”

  “Don’t nag, Clara.”

  “No, of course not. I’m just showing you some courtesy here. Frank is going to be moving in here next week.”

  “But you can’t let him!” He was shocked.

  “Well, I have every intention of doing so. I just thought you should hear it from me, that’s all.”

  “But, Clara, you’re much too old for this,” he said.

  “Imagine, you were once considered quite charming and dashing,” Clara said.

  Emily had the spare room in Dr. Hat’s house beautifully decorated, and she planned a series of outings to entertain Betsy and Eric. She had this ludicrous wish that they should love Ireland like she did. She hoped that it wouldn’t rain, that the streets would be free of litter, that the price of everything would not be too high.

  Emily and Hat were at the airport long before the plane arrived.

  “It only seems the other day since you came out to meet me here,” Emily said, “and you brought me a picnic in the car.”

  “I had begun to fancy you seriously then, but I was terrified you’d say it was all nonsense.”

  “I’d never have said that.” She looked at him very fondly.

  “I hope your friend won’t think I’m too old and dull for you,” he said anxiously.

  “You’re my Hat. My choice. The only person I ever even contemplated marrying,” she said firmly. And that was that.

  Betsy was bemused by the size of the airport and the frantic activity all around. She had thought the plane would land in a field of cows or sheep. This was a huge, sprawling place like an airport back home. She couldn’t believe the traffic, the highways and the huge buildings.

  “You never told me how developed it all is. I thought it was a succession of little cottages where you knew everyone who moves,” she said, laughing. In minutes it was as if they had never been parted.

  Eric and Dr. Hat exchanged relieved glances. It was all going to be fine.

  Emily was going to be given away by her uncle Charles.

  Charles and Josie had finally come to the conclusion that a children’s playground and a small statue of St. Jarlath would fit the bill. They had been to see a lawyer and settled a sum for Noel and one for Frankie. They had even arranged for Emily to have a substantial sum as a wedding gift so that she wouldn’t start her married life with no money of her own. It wasn’t a dowry, of course, and Charles said that so often that Emily began to wonder.

  Noel knew nothing about his inheritance. Charles and Josie had been waiting to talk to him on his own. There was always someone with him—Lisa or Faith or Declan Carroll. They could hardly remember the days before Frankie was born, when Noel was a man always by himself. Now the two of them were always the center of a group of people.

  Finally they found him alone.

  “Will you sit down, Noel? We have something to tell you,” Charles said.

  “I don’t like the sound of this.” Noel looked from one to the other anxiously.

  “No, you are going to like what your father has to say,” Josie said with a rare smile.

  Noel hoped they hadn’t seen a vision or anything, that St. Jarlath hadn’t appeared in the kitchen asking them to build a cathedral. They had seemed so normal recently, it would be a pity if they had had a setback.

  “It’s about your future, Noel. You know that Mrs. Monty, may God be good to her, has left us a sum of money. We want to share this with you.”

  “Ah, no, Dad, thank you but that’s for you and Mam. You did the dog minding—I wouldn’t want to take any of it.”

  “But you don’t know how much she left,” Charles said.

  “Is there enough to take you to Rome? Or even Jerusalem? That’s wonderful news!”

  “There’s much more than that—you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “But it’s yours, Dad.”

  “We’ve made arrangements for an educational policy for Frankie, so th
at she’ll never lack for a good school. And there’ll be a lump sum for yourself, maybe the deposit on a house so you’d have your own place and not have to rent.”

  “But this is ridiculous, Dad. It would cost a fortune.”

  “She left us a fortune. And after a lot of thought we are spending it on a children’s garden with a small statue, and on our own flesh and blood.”

  Noel looked at them wordlessly. They had sorted out everything that was worrying him. He would be able to have a proper home for Frankie and maybe, if she’d have him, for Faith. Frankie would get a top-class education. Noel would have his rainy-day security.

  All because his father had been kind to Caesar, a little King Charles spaniel with soppy brown eyes.

  Wasn’t life totally extraordinary?

  On the morning of the wedding, before they set out for the church, Charles made a little speech to Emily.

  “By rights it should have been my brother doing this but I hope I’ll do you credit.”

  “Charles, if it were up to my father, he wouldn’t have turned up, or if he had, he would have been drunk. I much prefer having you.”

  Father Flynn married them. Emily could have filled the church five times over, but they wanted only a small gathering, so twenty of them stood in the sunlight as they made their vows. Then they went to Holly’s Hotel in County Wicklow and back home to St. Jarlath’s Crescent. Then the honeymoon continued for the two couples; Dingo Duggan got new tires to make sure that they got to the west and back.

  They stayed in farmhouses and walked along shell-covered shores with purple-blue mountains as a backdrop. And if you were to ask anyone who they were and what they were doing, a hundred guesses would never have said that they were two middle-aged couples on honeymoon. They all seemed too settled and happy for that.

  Two days after Emily’s wedding, Father Flynn heard from the nursing home in Rossmore that his mother was dying. He got down there quickly and held her hand. His mother’s mind was far from clear but he felt that by being there he might be of some comfort. When his mother spoke it was of people long dead, and of incidents in her childhood. Suddenly, however, she came back to the present day.

  “Whatever happened to Brian?” she asked him.

  “I’m right here.”

  “I had a son called Brian,” she continued, as though she hadn’t heard him. “I don’t know what happened to him. I think he joined a circus. He left town and no one ever heard of him again.…”

  When Mrs. Flynn died almost the whole of Rossmore turned out for the funeral. At the nursing home, the staff had gathered together the old lady’s belongings and gave them to the priest. They included some old diaries and a few pieces of jewelry no one had ever seen her wear.

  Brian looked through them as he came back in the train. The jewelry had been given to her by her husband, the diary told, but they had not been given in love but out of guilt. Brian read with pain and embarrassment that his father had not been a faithful man and he had thought he could buy his wife’s forgiveness with a necklace and various brooches. Brian decided to give the jewelry to his sister Judy with no mention of its history.

  He looked up the date of his own ordination to the priesthood in the battered diary. His mother had written:

  This is simply the best day of my life.

  It somehow made up for her thinking he had joined a circus.

  · · ·

  Ania’s family were on their way from Poland to be with her as she and Carl watched over baby Robert. He was so tiny, they could have held him in the palms of their hands; instead he was lying in an incubator attached to monitors and with tubes in and out of his tiny body. Ania watched carefully as the breathing monitor showed how Robert was having difficulty breathing on his own and how the machine was breathing for him. She was able to hold his tiny hand through the holes in the incubator. He looked so small, so vulnerable, so unprepared for the world.

  Back at home, they had a nursery prepared, waiting for them to come home as a new family. The room was full of gifts given to them by friends and well-wishers. There were baby clothes and toys and all the equipment for a newborn child. Carl silently wondered if baby Robert would ever get to use it.

  On the third day, Ania was able to hold her baby in her arms. Unable to speak for the emotion, her face was wet with tears of hope and joy as she held him, so tiny, so fragile.

  “Mały cud,” she whispered to him. “Little miracle.”

  The honeymoon had been a resounding success. Emily and Betsy were like girls, chattering and laughing. Hat and Eric found a great common interest in bird-watching and wrote notes each evening. Dingo met a Galway girl with black hair and blue eyes and was very smitten. The sun shone on the newlyweds and the nights were full of stars.

  It was over too soon for everyone.

  “I wonder if there’s any news when we get back? I wonder how Ania’s baby is doing. I do hope he’s going to be all right,” Emily said as they drew closer to Dublin.

  “You’re really part of the place now,” Betsy said.

  “Yes, isn’t it odd? I never had a real conversation in my life with my father about Ireland or about anything else, but I do feel that I have come home.”

  Hat heard her say this and smiled to himself. It was even more than he had hoped.

  When they did get back they heard the astounding news that Frank Ennis had moved in with the elegant Clara Casey, who ran the heart clinic, and, wait for it … he had a son. Frank Ennis had a son called Des Raven, who lived in Australia and was coming to Ireland.

  Fiona could talk of nothing else. It had completely wiped her own pregnancy off the list of topics. Clara living with Frank Ennis—didn’t people do extraordinary things. And Frank had a son she hadn’t met yet. Imagine.

  Their first chance to celebrate properly as a family came when Adi came back from Ecuador with her boyfriend, Gerry. Des had wanted to go back to Anton’s. “It will be like starting over,” he had said. This time, there was no need to plead for a table, even though they were nine: Clara, Frank and Des; then Adi and Gerry; Linda came with Nick. Hilary from the clinic and Clara’s best friend, Dervla, made up the party.

  The restaurant was half empty and there seemed to be an air of confusion about the place. The menu was more limited than before and Anton himself was working in and out of the kitchen. He said that his number one, Teddy, had gone, as he needed new pastures. No, he had no idea where he went. Des Raven was very courteous to his new almost-stepsisters. He talked to Adi about teaching; he spoke to Linda about some friends of his who had adopted a Chinese baby; he talked easily of his life in Australia.

  Clara asked Anton’s advice about what they should eat.

  “There’s a very good steak and kidney pie,” he suggested.

  “That’s the men sorted, but what about the rest of us?” she asked. She noticed he was tired and strained. It couldn’t be easy running a restaurant that looked as though it might be on the way down.

  “Small, elegant portions of steak and kidney pie?” he suggested with a winning smile.

  Clara stopped feeling sorry for him. With a smile like that he would get by. He was a survivor.

  Frank Ennis, in his new suit, was in charge of the table. He poured wine readily and urged people to have oysters as the optional extra.

  “I talk about my son a lot,” he said proudly to Des.

  “Good. Do you talk about Clara a lot?” he asked.

  “With respect and awe,” Frank said.

  “Good,” intervened Clara, “because she wants to tell you that her clinic needs some serious extra funding.…”

  “Out of the question.”

  “The blood tests take too long from the main hospital. We need our own lab.”

  “I’ll get your blood tests fast-tracked,” Frank Ennis promised.

  “You have six weeks for us to see a real difference; otherwise the fight is on,” Clara said. “He is amazingly generous in real life,” she whispered to Dervla. “It’s ju
st in the hospital that his rotten-to-the-core meanness shows.”

  “He’s delighted with you,” Dervla said. “He has said ‘My Clara’ thirty times during this meal alone.”

  “Well, I’m keeping my name, my job, my clinic and my house, so I’m doing very well out of it,” Clara said.

  “Go on out of that, playing the tough bird—you’re just as soppy as he is. You’re delighted at this playing-house thing. I’m happy for you, Clara, and I hope that you’ll be very happy together.”

  “I will.” Clara had it all planned out. Minimal disturbance to their two lives. They were both people who were set in their ways.

  Lisa was surprised when Kevin asked her out to lunch.

  She was in a junior position in the studio. She didn’t expect her boss to single her out. In Quentins she was even more surprised that he ordered a bottle of wine. Kevin was usually a one-vodka person. This looked like something serious. She hoped he wasn’t going to sack her. But surely he wouldn’t take her out to lunch to give her the push?

  “Stop frowning, Lisa. We’re going to have a long lunch,” Kevin said.

  “What is it? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “Two things, really. Did Anton pay you anything? Anything at all?”

  “Oh, why are you dragging this up? I told you it was my fault. I went in there with my eyes open.”

  “No, you didn’t. Your eyes were closed in mad, passionate love, and fair play to you, you’re not bitter, but I really need to know.”

  “No, he paid me nothing, but I was part of the place, part of the dream. I was doing it for us, not for him. That’s what I thought, anyway. Don’t make me go on repeating all this. I know what I did for months … it doesn’t make it any easier having to talk about that.”

  “It’s just that he’s going into receivership today and I wanted to make sure you got your claim in. You are a serious victim here. You worked for him without being paid, for God’s sake. You are a major creditor.”