Quentins Page 2

  "All right, then," he said, with his face red and almost tearful. "All right, it wasn't what I had planned, but here we go." He knelt down and produced a diamond ring.

  I love you, Nuala, and I was waiting for you to give me an indication of whether you would mind coming to England with me. When you were so silent, I thought you wouldn't come with me. Please, do please, marry me."

  Nuala stared at him with delight. I thought you didn't love me, that you were leaving me," she began.

  "Will you marry me?" he said, almost purple now.

  "Frank, you see, I thought you wanted a career more than ..."

  A vein was moving dangerously in Frank's forehead.

  I was so upset I had even been looking up jobs in London . .."

  Ella could bear it no longer. "NUALA, WILL YOU MARRY HIM ... YES OR NO?" she shouted, and the whole restaurant

  watched as Nuala said that of course she would, then everyone cheered.

  Deirdre and Ella were to be the bridesmaids three months later.

  "Maybe I might meet my own true love at Nuala's wedding," Ella said to her mother. I'll certainly be hard to miss in this awful tangerine-coloured outfit she has insisted we wear!"

  "You look well in anything," Barbara said.

  "Come on, Mam, please. We look like two things dressed up to sell petrol in a garage or to give away sweets for a charity."

  "Nonsense, you're much too hard on yourself . .."

  "Deirdre was saying that again only the other day, she says you both give me everything I want and praise as well, that I'm a spoiled princess."

  "Nothing could be further from the truth."

  "But Mam, you don't even nag me about not going to Mass."

  "Well, I will if you like, but what good would it do? Anyway Father Kenny says we should look after our own souls and not everyone else's."

  "It's late that Father Kenny and the Church have decided that, what about the Crusades and the Missions?"

  "I don't suppose you're going to tell me that you think poor Father Kenny was personally involved in the Crusades and the Missions," Barbara said with a smile.

  "No, of course not, and I will be polite and respectful all during the wedding ceremony, though I think Nuala's crazy to go for the whole church thing."

  "So when the time comes for you, we won't have to alert Father Kenny?"

  "No, Mam, but by the time the time comes for me, it could be the planet Mars that might be the in place to get married."

  Ella didn't meet her true love at Nuala's wedding, but Deirdre did meet and greatly fancied one of Frank's married brothers, who had come over from London for the wedding.

  "Oh, Deirdre, please don't. I beg you, put him down," Ella had said.

  "What on earth do you mean?" Deirdre's eyes were wide open with innocence.

  "I'm worn out covering for you and that fool of the first order, delaying photographs and everything until the bridesmaid comes back dishevelled with one of the ushers, what are you thinking of?"

  "It's okay, it's a bit of a laugh. Nuala would laugh too - will laugh, in fact."

  "No, Deirdre, you've got it so wrong, that's her brother-in-law now. Someone she'll be seeing with his wife twice a week in London. Nuala won't laugh, and what's more, she won't know."

  "Oh, God, you're so disapproving! That's what people do at weddings, that's what weddings are for."

  "Adjust your dress, Deirdre, more piccies to be taken." Ella had a voice like steel.

  "What do you mean, adjust my dress?"

  "Well, pull it down at the back, it's all caught up in your knickers." Ella had the satisfaction of watching Deirdre's worried face as she beat around hopelessly at the back of her dress, which was, as it happened, not caught up at all.

  At the wedding, Ella met Nuala's cousin, a woman she had not met for years. She was just about to leave her job as a science teacher; did Ella know anyone looking for a job?

  Ella said she'd love the job herself.

  "I didn't know you were going to teach," the woman said, surprised.

  "Neither did I, until this minute," said Ella.

  Her parents were very surprised at the news also. "You know you can go on at university and take more degrees, the money is there for you," her father said, nodding towards the downstairs flat, where the three women bankers were happy to pay for the privilege of living in a good address like Tara Road.

  "No, Dad, really, I've been to the school, they're nice. They don't mind I've no experience. They seem to think I'll be able to manage the kids; well, I'm tall physically . .. that's a help, if it comes to arm wrestling," Ella said with a smile.

  "You got a good degree as well," her mother reminded her.

  "Yeah, well, that helped, I suppose - anyway I just have to do this teaching diploma, which means lectures in the evenings . .. and since the school is over that way near the university, I was thinking . . ." She wondered how to put this to them. That it was time to leave home. They took it very calmly.

  "We had wondered if you'd like to live in the basement flat eventually?" Her father was tentative.

  "You'd be free to come and go like the bank girls there are," her mother said. "Nobody to bother you or anything."

  "It's just the distance, Mam, it's not about people bothering me. You never have."

  "You know, days could go by without your having to see us, just like the tenants. And there are big, strong walls .. ."

  She knew this was their last plea, then they would give in. "No, I'm not worried about your hearing my wild parties, Dad. Honestly, it's only to make it all quicker and easier. And I'll be at home often, even staying for whole weekends if you want me."

  The deal was done.

  "I don't believe you, your own place and a room at home, that's pure greed. Why should you get it all, Ella Brady?" Deirdre said.

  "Because I'm reliable, that's why," Ella replied. "I'm no trouble. I never have been. That's why I have such an easy life."

  And it all did go easily. Ella liked the school, the other young teachers warned her of the pitfalls, the staffroom bores, the danger of getting sucked into campaigns, how to cope with parent-teacher meetings, how to lobby for better equipment for the lab. She liked the children and their enthusiasm. It seemed only the other day that she was in a classroom on the other side of the desk. The lectures were easy too, and she found herself a flat in a leafy road only five minutes from the school.

  "I feel free here somehow, independent," Ella explained to Deirdre.

  I don't know why you bothered, you got your meals served to you back in your parents" place, and it's not as if you ever brought a bloke in here, by the looks of things."

  "How do you know?" Ella laughed.

  "Well, have you?"

  "No, as it happens, but I might."

  "See?" Deirdre was triumphant. "I don't know why you feel so free and independent, I really don't."

  And in a way, neither did Ella know. She thought it had something to do with not having to think about her parents" marriage. They were old now, in their sixties, and they still clung to work rather than retire like other people of their age did. They could sell that big house in Tara Road for a fortune and buy a much smaller place. Then Mam would not have to go in anxiously to the law firm where she suspected that she was being kept on

  I

  from kindness. Dad would not have to go to what he saw as a changing world of money men.

  They got on well together. Surely they did? As she had so often told Deirdre, they never had rows. Suppose they were to turn the house back into apartments, then the rent that would bring in would mean they could retire. She would say nothing yet, just let the idea develop.

  She went back home to see them for supper at least once a week and every Sunday as well, but she never stayed over. She said she studied better in the flat. Some months later, she made the suggestion that they should let her room.

  Never had anything fallen on such unresponsive ground. They were astounded that she should
even think of it. They didn't want to retire. What would they do with their days?

  Suddenly Ella's legendary laughter left her. She saw a very bleak future ahead. Imagine what desperate lives people must lead if these two, who were meant to be Happily Married, couldn't even bear the thought of being side by side at home instead of going to jobs which they found tiring and anxiety-creating.

  I'd prefer to be a nun than have a dead marriage," Ella told Deirdre very earnestly.

  Deirdre worked in a busy laboratory where she knew a great many men.

  "You might as well be a nun, the way you live," Deirdre said. In fact, I think you are one in plain clothes."

  And as time went by Nuala still kept in touch from London. She had decided not to get a job after all, but instead to work in the company as a receptionist. Frank said it was better to keep all the family secrets within the family, she wrote.

  "What family secrets does she mean?" Deirdre wondered.

  "Probably that her brothers-in-law are screwing everything that moves in there," Ella suggested.

  "Very droll." Deirdre still wondered what they could be hiding.

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, Dee. Remember them at the wedding in their sharp suits and their eyes never still, moving around the room? Those fellows have never known what it was like to keep proper books or pay proper tax in their lives."

  "You think all builders are unreliable, that's your prejudice." Deirdre was spirited.

  "No, I don't, look at Tom Feather! His family are aboveboard. Lots of them are. It's just Frank's lot make me shudder."

  "If you're right, do you suppose they have our pal Nuala drawn into it all?" Deirdre wondered.

  "Poor Nuala. I'd just hate to be wrapped up with that lot," Ella said.

  "Now funnily enough, I'd find being wrapped up with Eric, that eldest brother, no problem at all," Deirdre laughed.

  "You might get your chance, they're going to have a family gathering here in Dublin for Frank's parents. We're invited," Ella read at the end of the letter.

  "Great. I'll get one of those suspender belt things."

  "No, Deirdre, you won't, it's only three years since the wedding, they won't have forgotten you. We'll keep well away from Frank's family."

  The party was very showy. There were even columnists and photographers at it. Frank and his three brothers posed endlessly as an Irish success story. They were photographed with politicians, celebrities, with their parents and their wives.

  "It's very fancy for a fortieth wedding anniversary, isn't it... all this razzmatazz. I think that the old folk look a bit bewildered," Deirdre said.

  Ella pushed her sunglasses back on her head to study the party more seriously. "No, they're well able for it, the mam and dad, for them it's a triumphal celebration. It's "Look at what a success Our Boys have made in life"."

  "Why don't you like them, Ella?"

  I don't know, I really don't, to be honest."

  "Do you think Nuala's happy?"

  I think so, a bit hunted. But she got what she wanted, so I suppose that's happy."

  Ella always remembered that remark becau se just as she was saying it a man beside them was jostled against her by a press photographer. "Please, Mr Richardson, can we have you in the group?"

  "No, thanks all the same, but this is a family party. It's not appropriate."

  "It would make sure we got it in the paper?" The camera man was persuasive, but not enough.

  "No, thanks, as I said, I'd really much prefer to talk to these two lovely ladies."

  Ella turned at the calm, very forceful voice. And she looked Don Richardson, Financial Consultant, whose picture was indeed often in the newspapers. But they had never done him justice. He was good-looking certainly - dark curly hair, blue eyes - but had a way of looking at you that excluded everyone else in the room. Ella knew she hadn't imagined this because out of the corner of her eye she saw Deirdre shrugging slightly and moving away. Leaving her alone with Don Richardson. |

  Ella had never been able to flirt. Her friend Nick said it was weakness in a woman. Men just loved that come-on look from under the eyelashes. Ella was too up-front he said, lessened the magic somehow. She wished she had listened to Nick. Now for the very first time she wanted to know how to do it.

  Even if she had five minutes with Deirdre - but her friend had gone to hover in the danger area of Frank's brothers.

  It turned out not to be necessary.

  He held out his hand to her with a great smile. "Ella Brady from Tara Road, how are you? I'm Don Richardson. It's such a pleasure to meet you."

  "How do you know my name?" she croaked.

  "I asked a couple of people, Danny Lynch, the property guy, he told me. He lives near you, apparently."

  Ella heard herself saying, "Yes, well, near my parents, actually. I've moved out of home, you see, and I have my own place."

  "Why am I very pleased to hear that, Ella Brady?" he asked. He hadn't stopped smiling and he hadn't stopped holding her hand.

  Chapter Two.

  Ella got home from the hotel somehow on her own. She thought afterwards that she must have taken a taxi, but she didn't remember it. She sat down and looked around her for a long time before she took stock of it all. This was not Happening to her. This was the stuff of silly movies or magazine stories, which had to have the love-at-first-sight theme running through them. Don Richardson was just a known charmer, a professional who made his money by saying Trust Me to people, by holding their hands for a little too long, by letting his eyes lock into theirs. There was obviously a Mrs Richardson in the room tonight, maybe a history of several of them. There were little Richardsons at home all of whom would need quality time. Ella Brady was not going to go down this road. She had mopped the tears of too many friends who had told her fantasy tales of men who were going to leave their wives. She would not join their number. Women had an amazing capacity to fool themselves, Ella had seen it over and over. She would never be part of it.

  He was waiting outside the school next morning. Sitting in a new BMW and smiling as she approached. Ella wished that she had dressed better. But he didn't seem to notice.

  "Are you surprised?" he asked.

  "Very," she said.

  "Can you sit in for a moment? Please," he asked.

  "I have to get to class."

  She sat in his car. She wanted to make some kind of joke, some

  wisecracking remark that would disguise how nervous and excited she felt.

  But she decided to say nothing at all. Let him explain what had to be explained.

  I'm forty-one years old, Ella, married for eighteen years to Margery Rice, daughter of Ricky Rice, who is theoretically my boss, or at any rate the money in our company. I have two sons aged sixteen and fifteen. Margery and I have a dead marriage - it suits both of us to stay together, at the moment anyway. It certainly suits her father and it suits our two sons. We share a home out in Killiney, by the sea. I also have a business flat in the Financial Services Centre.

  "Margery spends most of her day golfing or running charity events. We live entirely separate lives. You would be breaking up nothing, nil, zilch, zero, if you were to say that you would have dinner with me tonight in Quentins at around eight." He put his head on one side as if waiting for her argument.

  "I'd like that, see you there," Ella said, and got out of the car. She felt her legs shaking as she went into the staffroom. Ella Brady, who had never taken a class off in her teaching life, went straight to the Principal and said she had to leave the school at lunchtime, it was an emergency. She booked a hair-do, a manicure and a leg wax. She bought fresh flowers for her flat, changed the sheets and tidied the place, examining it with a critical eye. It was probably a wasted effort. But it was wiser to be prepared.

  "You got your hair done," he said as she joined him in one of the private booths at Quentins.

  "You went home and changed too. Long trek out to Killiney and back," Ella said, smiling.

  "Separate lives, Ella,
either you believe me or you don't." Don had an extraordinary smile.

  "Of course I believe you, Don. Now that that's out of the way, we never have to mention it again."

  "And do I have to get anything out of the way? Long-term loves, jealous suitors, possible fiances in the wings?"

  "Nothing at all," she said. "Believe me or don't."

  "I totally believe you, what a wonderful dinner we are going to have," he said.

  The evening passed too quickly. She reminded herself over and over that there must be no brittle jokes about it being time to send him home.

  He had dealt with that side of it already. They were meeting as free agents or not at all. He told her about a lunch they'd had in the office today with outside caterers for the first time, and how it must be the hardest job on earth preparing and clearing up after businessmen who all wanted endless vodka and tonics without letting their bosses see just how much they were knocking back.

  They were marvellous kids, he said, ran the thing like clockwork, he'd get them more work. Didn't even want to be paid in cash, said they had some accountant who went ballistic over that and everything. Ella said that she thought everyone did.

  "Sure they do, of course they do. I was only trying to give these two at Scarlet Feather a break."

  "Oh, Scarlet Feather, I know them! Tom and Cathy, they're great people," Ella said, pleased they had someone else in common.

  "Yes, they seemed fine. I'd hire them again. They're not going to get rich quick, but that's their business."

  He seemed for a moment to think less of them because they weren't going to get rich quick. A shadow came over it all. Maybe Rice and Richardson only liked people who made lots of money.

  "How do you know the builders, Eric and his brothers?" she asked.

  "Oh, business," he said quickly. "We handle a few investments tor Eric and the boys. And you?"