Quentins Page 5

  35

  to my flat, I saw your lights on and realised you were home .. . but . .."

  "But what?" she asked.

  "But our date was for tonight. I didn't want to look foolish and overeager."

  Her eyes had tears in them as she led him away from the table and to the bedroom. And it was everything that it had never been before, with Nick or with the sporting hero or the two one-night stands. Ella lay in his arms long after Don had gone to sleep. She was the luckiest woman in the world.

  Next morning, she just offered him coffee and orange juice, and didn't fuss about breakfast. He seemed to like the lack of fuss. Possibly Margery and the boys made too much noise and crowded him out. Ella would never be like that.

  She picked up a package of papers to take to school.

  "What are they?" he asked, interested.

  "Oh, I gave the Fifth Years a test yesterday. The good side of that is you have forty minutes" peace while they do it, the bad side is you have to mark thirty-three extra papers."

  He kissed her on the nose.

  "I know nothing of your life, Ella Brady," he said.

  "Probably better to keep it that way, in case you keel over and die of boredom," she said.

  "You couldn't bore me." He sounded very serious. "May I come back tonight, a bit late-ish?"

  Td love that," Ella said. She had been forcing herself not to ask when they would meet again.

  "I'm not tying up your evening on you?" He was solicitous.

  "No, I'm meeting Deirdre for an early supper at Quentins. I'll be back by nine. Does that suit?"

  "I'll be here around ten, I'll have eaten a very dull and sober dinner ... a financial committee. I have to take notes and be alert so maybe I could drink a glass of wine or two with you?"

  She gave a little shiver. Don Richardson who had homes in Killiney, in the Financial Centre and in Spain, was going to stay in her little flat two nights running. Last night in bed he had told her he loved her. It looked as if he meant it.

  Ella managed to get through the day, and when she arrived at Quentins, Deirdre was waiting.

  36

  "Are you going to tell me everything?" Deirdre demanded before Ella said hallo.

  "Not as much as you'll want to know, but I'll tell you a fair bit."

  "Tell me the main thing, the only thing, is he coming back for more?" Deirdre asked.

  "He's going to stay the night tonight as well, yes."

  "He stayed the whole night. Oh my God!" cried Deirdre in such a loud voice that everyone in the restaurant looked over at their table.

  "Thanks, Dee," hissed Ella. "Why didn't you ask for a microphone, then even the faraway tables could have heard you."

  "No worries." They were consoled by Mon, the young waitress whom they both knew and liked. She had told them in the past about her unerring bad taste in men back in Australia, and how she had lost her heart and all her savings to a fellow in Italy. Deirdre and Ella had been sympathetic and said that it was pretty much a global problem. Men were the cause of most of the unrest and unease on the planet.

  Mon had recently found a new love, she had confided. He was older and wiser and trustworthy. His name was Mr Harris.

  Had he a first name? they wondered. He had, apparently, but Mon liked to think of him as Mr Harris at the moment.

  "I hope your Mr Harris isn't here to be shocked by my loudmouth friend Dee," Ella said in a low voice. "No, he's not, and he wouldn't be shocked, but tell me, did that guy with the gorgeous smile and the dark blue eyes really stay the whole night?" Mon whispered.

  "Dee, I will stab you very hard with something," Ella said.

  "No, don't stab her. No one heard except me and, anyway, the others are all tourists. It doesn't matter if they did," said Mon cheerfully.

  Don stayed that night and the next. On Friday morning he said he was going to Spain for a few days.

  I wish I didn't have to."

  "Enjoy it," Ella managed to say. She didn't ask if it were business or family. She didn't want to know. But he told her.

  "I look after a lot of property interests out there. I need to go out at least once a month, not a hardship posting, I agree. Sometimes the boys come if it's half-term or when they can get a day or two off school. But not this time. Still, I'll be back next

  37

  Wednesday and maybe we can go out for a meal. I don't want you getting tired of cooking for me."

  "I enjoy it, Don, truly I do, and perhaps, you know, it's wiser not to be out in public in the circumstances."

  He looked surprised. "Honestly Angel, I told you there's no problem, it's separate lives." He said it so often it had to be true.

  But the next day some torment made her call the Richardson home in Killiney and ask to speak to Mrs Margery Richardson. She was prepared to hang up when the woman came to the phone.

  "I'm afraid she's not here," said the housekeeper. "She's gone to Spain. She'll be back on Wednesday."

  "Nick? It's Deirdre."

  "Oh, I know, Deirdre. You want to join Firefly Films," he said.

  "No, I don't, but I'm worried about Ella."

  "Join the club."

  "No, seriously. She's not herself, Nick."

  "When are any of us ourselves?"

  "Stop being flippant, it's not funny. This guy Don Richardson, where is he at the moment?"

  "He's gone to Spain. He ordered another dozen videos, to be ready when he gets back. Main thing, he seemed pleased with them."

  "That's not the main thing, Nick, the main thing is ... Ella is miserable. Did he say it was business or going with the family?"

  "How would I know? And what difference does it make?"

  "So why is Ms Brady throwing herself off O"Connell Bridge?"

  "No!" Nick cried.

  "It's a figure of speech, she just won't be consoled."

  "Oh Jesus, this love business is terrible," Nick said sympathetically.

  "Tell me about it, Nick! I'm so glad I never bought into it myself," said Deirdre.

  "It's wonderful that Ella came to us for a whole long weekend," Tim Brady said. "Imagine, she's going to stay here until Tuesday."

  "Yes," said his wife.

  "Aren't you pleased, Barbara?"

  "I'd be much more pleased if she hadn't asked us to say she isn't here and we have no idea where she is," Ella's mother said.

  38

  I

  I

  I

  "She says she wants to cut herself off a bit from the world, have a rest." Her father believed the story.

  "Yes, but some man has rung four times. He says her mobile is turned off, he's getting anxious and annoyed."

  "Trust Ella, it may just be some fellow she doesn't want to encourage. Does he say who he is?"

  "No, and I don't ask him," Barbara Brady said.

  On Sunday the man on the phone did say who he was. "Mrs Brady, it's Don Richardson here, we had the pleasure of meeting briefly in Holly's Hotel last week ... I am most anxious to talk to Ella. I wonder if you could ask her to call me? I can give you the number."

  "Oh, yes, of course, Mr Richardson, I remember. Nice to talk to you again."

  "Yes, so if she's there ... I wonder . .."

  "No, unfortunately she's not at home." Barbara Brady hated telling lies. She knew she wasn't very good at it either.

  "But she will be back sometime, won't she? I mean, you will see her, won't you?"

  "Oh, yes, of course," Barbara Brady said too quickly.

  He dictated his telephone number and thanked her.

  "Ella?" Barbara Brady knocked on her daughter's bedroom door. "May I come in?"

  "Sure, Mam."

  Ella sat hugging a cushion and rocking to and fro. She was red eyed, but not actually crying.

  "Don Richardson called again." Her mother's voice was clipped. "This time he left his name and number. He said that he was in Spain and I told him that I would give you the message and the number."

  "Thanks, Mam."

>   "And are you having any supper?"

  "No, Mam."

  "Or any plans to tell your father and myself what's going on?"

  "None at all, Mam."

  Til leave you to your thoughts then."

  "I love you, Mam."

  "Three easiest words to say in the whole world, "I love you"."

  "But I do!" Ella was stung.

  "We will be downstairs when you love us enough to join us," her mother said with her mouth in a very hard line.

  39

  "I don't suppose she could be involved with this Don Richardson?" Barbara said to her husband in a low, frightened voice.

  Ella's father was shocked. "He's a married man, Barbara, married to Ricky Rice's daughter."

  "Of course, she couldn't be so foolish."

  Ella had come to the top of the stairs and heard this. She went back to her room and stared ahead of her for a long time. It was inconvenient keeping her mobile phone turned off but she didn't want to get any messages from him, and she kept the phone in her flat off the hook, too. She had forgotten about the school. There were two dozen red roses for her there on Monday.

  "Stop hiding, I love you," was the message.

  Everyone in the staffroom had read it before she did. Their eyes were on her as she looked at the card.

  "Oh, I never knew the Fifth Years cared so much," she said with a laugh.

  As she left the room Ella heard them talking about her. "They must have cost a fortune, seventy to eighty euros," said one. "Bet he's married, otherwise he'd have put his name on the card," said another.

  Ella gritted her teeth and got down to work. She wouldn't have to think about him until Wednesday night. If he showed up.

  He knocked at her door at 8 p.m. on Wednesday. He had no flowers, no wine.

  "Hallo Don."

  "What's all this about?"

  "I don't understand," she said.

  "Neither do I. I said goodbye to you here on Friday morning, I told you I loved you, you told me you loved me. Then I went to Spain on business and suddenly you won't take my calls and get your mother to lie for you. What's going on, Ella?"

  I don't know. What is going on?" she said.

  "You tell me. I've been straight up all the way, you're the one playing games." He looked very angry.

  They were still on the doorstep.

  "You have not been straight. You didn't tell me you were taking your wife to Spain." Ella let the words tumble out.

  I took 'my wife", as you call her, nowhere!" he shouted.

  "Your "wife is what she is," Ella cried.

  I don't care. I will go the distance here on the doorstep, but on

  I

  I

  40

  mature reflection, as they say, you may prefer to do it indoors," he said.

  Wearily she opened the door.

  He marched into her sitting room as if he owned it and sat down. "Okay Ella, tell me," he began.

  "No, you tell me. You said you were going to Spain on business and then I hear that you took your wife."

  "And how do you hear this, Ella?"

  "It's not important, you did take her."

  "I did not take her, she decided to come at the same time, she owns half the house."

  "But you didn't tell me that she was going."

  "I didn't bloody know until she said she was going and anyway, it's not important. I don't have to tell you, you agreed to accept that we lived separate lives. You told me you agreed, that you believed that." He looked bewildered and upset.

  "Huh," she said.

  "What does that mean?"

  "I don't know," Ella said truthfully.

  "You said it, so you must know. What do you mean? What are you asking me?"

  There was a silence.

  "What do you want to know?" he asked again.

  Another silence and then she spoke. "Did you sleep with her? Do you still have sex with her?" Ella's voice was low.

  Don Richardson stood up. His face was working, she had never seen him so upset. "I'm sorry, Ella, I'm really sorry. I thought I had made it all clear, I really thought I had come and told you the whole situation outside your school that day."

  "Yes, but .. ." she began.

  "And I thought you said that you understood."

  "I thought I did but .. ."

  "But you don't understand at all, you actually think that I could love you and have sex with Margery, you really do think that, don't you?"

  "I think it's possible, yes."

  "Then you and I, we haven't much more to talk about, Ella, my angel, have we?" he said sadly.

  "Do you?" she asked.

  "Do I what?"

  "Do you have sex with her?"

  4i

  "Goodbye, Ella," he said, moving towards the door.

  "So it's yes," she said in a heavy tone.

  "It's no actually, but it doesn't matter. I won't stay where there's such suspicion. Someone must have hurt you very badly somewhere along the line to make you feel hurt and anxious like this."

  "Bullshit, Don Richardson, nobody hurt me before, nobody touched me before, I never loved anyone before. There's no mythical villain. You tell me it's a business trip and then I hear your wife is with you, what's so abnormal about being upset? Don't make me into some kind of freak."

  "And how exactly did you hear, might I ask?" His voice was ice

  cold.

  It was the end. Ella knew it. "Not that it matters, but I called your house, and I was told that the lady of the manor was in

  Spain." Another silence,

  "Thanks, Ella, thanks for everything, thanks for coming to spy at the fund-raiser, thanks for calling to check on my family's movements, thanks for jumping to conclusions, and most of all thanks for not believing me when I say I love you. I'm sorry - but then what exactly am I sorry for?"

  She looked at him in horror as he stood there saying goodbye. "Why should I apologise for being utterly honest from the start, telling you the score, telling you the truth, coming to meet your parents, calling them to say I was worried that you didn't answer your phone. Are these the actions of some kind of shit? No, I think they're what a man who loves you might do.

  "But you know better. You have some different standard. I truly hope you find what you're looking for. You are a lovely girl, Ella. An angel in fact, and I'll always wish you well."

  He was nearly at the gate when she caught him, held his arm and pleaded with him to come back. People walking their dogs on the leafy road saw the blonde girl in floods of tears pleading with the

  tall handsome man.

  "I'm sorry. Forgive me. I want just one more chance. I'm such a fool, Don, it's only because I love you so desperately. I'm just afraid to believe you love me. Come back, please, please."

  And if they had continued looking they would have seen the man leading her back into the lighted hall with his arm around her.

  "Does all this mean he'll be moving into your place now?" Deirdre asked some days later.

  "Of course not, don't be silly," Ella said.

  "Why is it so silly? It would save the rent on the place in the Financial Services area."

  "But he has to say he's somewhere. He can't say he's here," Ella said as if it were totally obvious.

  "No, of course not," Deirdre said, confused.

  "Why can't he say he's shacked up with Ella if it's a dead marriage?" Deirdre asked Nick later.

  "Don't ask," Nick said. "I've found it much easier not to bring up cosmic questions like that."

  43

  Chapter Three.

  The pattern of their life began then, at least three and sometimes five nights a week together. Ella saw no other friends in the evening because she was never sure whether Don might suddenly be free.

  There were lunches, of course. Deirdre would voice the questions that Ella never spoke aloud. cls he going to leave her for you? He's practically living with you, for God's sake."

  "He can't leave, because of his father-in-l
aw. I told you that."

  "Ricky Rice lives in the modern world. He's heard of divorce, he knows Don isn't in the family nest every night."

  "Why rock the boat? We're fine as we are."

  "And your parents, what do they think?"

  "They're fine with it," Ella shrugged.

  "No, Ella, they are not. Nobody's fine with their little girl being the plaything of a tycoon."

  Ella pealed with laughter. I don't know why I have you as a friend. You try to unsettle me and you use ludicrous phrases. "Plaything." "Tycoon." For heaven's sake! You're so old-fashioned, so utterly disapproving."

  Deirdre took a sip of wine, and spoke in a rare serious moment. "Actually, no, I'm not. I'm envious if you must know. I'd really love to be as absorbed and obsessed as you are."

  Ella said nothing for a moment. It wasn't like Deirdre to be so utterly honest. It demanded a similar honesty in response. "Well, okay, if you must know, it's not at all fine with my parents."

  "How could it be?" Deirdre was sympathetic.

  "Well, it could be if they allowed themselves to move into this

  century, Dee, if they just looked at the calendar and checked that

  it's not nineteen twenty-something."

  "They're no worse than anyone else of their generation." "Oh, but they are, even at school they don't go on that way." "Well, you can hardly tell the nuns you have a lover that lives in

  half the week."

  "There are hardly any nuns left, only a few old ones doing the

  accounts or the garden or something."

  "But isn't it called a convent?" Deirdre protested.

  "Oh, they're all called convent s, but that's not the point. Some

  of the staff are ancient, but they don't go round frowning and

  fretting."

  "Do they know, though?" Deirdre persisted.