A Week in Winter (37 page)

They would be talking about the Friends evening for days. It had been such a success on so many levels despite the rain that night. Even Miss Duffy was enthusiastic.

They had all come: the young poet, Lionel, had read some beautiful poems about mute swans. He was elated at the response, even more so when Freda introduced him to her aunt Eva. The author of ‘Feathers’, no less!

Miss Duffy had been suspicious when around half a dozen young girls had turned up, but they had turned out to be full of suggestions for reading groups.

‘I must say, I was surprised that they held us in such esteem,’ she said the very next day. Lane and Freda had cleared the place up perfectly and had returned the chairs to the theatre. There was nothing that Miss Duffy could complain about, so instead she decided to be pleased, gratified even.

Freda had long ago decided that she would accept no credit for it all, even though she would have had to take all the blame if it had turned out badly.

‘It’s only what you deserve,’ Freda said, as if it had all been Miss Duffy’s idea. ‘You have been here for years building this place up; it’s only right they should honour you and say how much the library means to them.’

Miss Duffy accepted it all graciously as her due.

That was good: it left Freda time to get on with things. There was so much to organise in an ordinary working day. They would have to check the Issue, the list of items currently out on loan. Then there were the notes to borrowers of books that were overdue. They would go through the Issue looking for requested items and report on their status. Then today there was the Stock Selection meeting, where they all sat down with Miss Duffy to choose what new titles they could order. They would examine books sent to them as approval copies, and look at notes from the book magazines as well. There was little enough time to think about this Friends meeting, never mind organise the next one. It was curious that she felt so deflated. Whatever it was she had been so sure was going to happen just hadn’t materialised.

Miss Duffy was surprised to see the great bunch of very expensive flowers that had been delivered. The message was simple.
I am already a Friend of the Library . . . Now I want to be a Friend of the Librarian
. The evening had been a success, of course, but who would have sent these as a thank you? The only person that ever sent flowers to Miss Duffy was her sister, and she was more of a potted violet sort of person. So who could have sent her this bouquet? She admired the flowers once more. Miss O’Donovan might arrange them for her if they could find a big enough vase.

Freda, of course, found a vase. She went into the store room and brought out a huge glass jar. Those flowers must have cost a fortune. Who on earth would have sent them?

Miss Duffy was vague, and said they were from a friend. She looked at her reflection in the glass doors and patted her hair several times. There was a thoughtful look in her eye.

Freda gave up.

When she was separating the long roses from the green ferns to arrange them better, she found the card that had come with the flowers.

. . . Now I want to be a Friend of the Librarian
. They were for her. She realised it with a shock that was almost physical. But who was it? And what did he mean? And why had he not put Freda’s name on them, instead of letting Miss Duffy think they were for her? She felt everything slowing down and becoming slightly unreal. There were far too many questions. She wanted to be alone to think about why she felt so uneasy and slightly shaky.

Lane had been on the phone to Eva to ask her what colour were a puffin’s legs.

Eva hadn’t hesitated. ‘Orange,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘And the beak? We’re painting scenery. Tell me about the beak, I know the shape and everything but what colour is it?’

‘Blue, yellow and orange. But you have to get the colours in the right order.’

‘I don’t mean an exotic puffin like in an aviary, I mean just an Irish puffin.’

‘That’s it, that’s a home-grown puffin. Come into the library – I’m just on my way there myself. I’ll point you to the books.’

‘I think I’d better. Birds with a blue, yellow and orange beak! You’d have to be on something very attitude-changing to see that in Ireland.’

They met on the steps.

‘We’re painting these huge backdrops for the next production,’ she explained. ‘I need to be sure about the puffins’ beak and legs. Are they really all colours of the rainbow, or were you having me on?’

‘Beaks have three colours, legs are orange – mostly during the breeding season. Much duller in winter,’ Eva confirmed.

‘Merciful God, in Ireland, birds like that!’

‘Well, if you ever came with us over to the Atlantic coast, you’d see them for yourself, whole colonies of them,’ Eva said reprovingly. ‘There’s a place called Stoneybridge. You should come along.’

And as they went in, they saw Freda at the counter talking to someone. She was pointing at a brochure and Freda was laughing and shaking her head. Her eyes were bright and she looked so young, so animated and alive in this old, grey building. Miss Duffy wore her usual navy wool cardigan with a small white lace collar; she was demure and full of gravitas. Freda in contrast wore a red shirt over black trousers. She had her black curly hair tied back with a big red ribbon. She looked like a colourful flower in the middle of it all, Lane thought. No wonder they were all queuing up to talk to her.

Waiting next in line was a man in a cashmere scarf and a very well-cut overcoat. He was looking at Freda intently.

Lane held back suddenly. She didn’t know why, but she felt faintly uneasy.

‘What is it?’ Eva asked.

‘That man, waiting to speak to Freda,’ Lane whispered.

‘I can’t see him,’ Eva complained.

‘Come this way, so. You’ll see him then and you won’t distract her.’

They both saw the way Freda was looking at the man who had approached her. It was just too far to hear what she was saying but her face had changed completely.

Whoever he was, he was significant.

Lane disliked him on sight.

‘Did you like my flowers?’

‘The ones for Miss Duffy, the Librarian? They’re lovely. Shall I get her for you?’

He paused to smell one of the roses. ‘They were for you, Freda.’ He was very good-looking, and there was such warmth in his smile.

She couldn’t help smiling back, though if Freda had ever known how to flirt she had forgotten the technique.

‘You weren’t at the Friends evening,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I’d have remembered you.’

‘Oh but I was here. I didn’t know about the meeting, I just came in when the rain came on. I stood at the back, over there.’ He pointed to a pillar beside the back door.

‘You didn’t sit down?’

‘No, I only wanted to miss the worst of the downpour, and I thought a talk in the library would be boring.’

‘And was it?’ She felt as if she were probing a sore tooth.

‘No, Freda, it was a great evening, there was warmth and enthusiasm and hope all here in this very room. That’s why I stayed.’

This was exactly what she had felt. She thought that people had been given some kind of lifeline that night. They were dying for something new, something to get involved in; they were all so anxious to help. She looked at him wordlessly.

‘I came to ask you to have dinner with me.’ She saw his neck redden slightly. Suddenly he looked uncertain. ‘I mean, it doesn’t have to be dinner, it could be a walk, a coffee, a movie, anything you like. Oh – no, wait – my name is Mark. Mark Malone. Will you come out with me?’

‘Dinner would be nice . . .’ she heard herself say.

‘Good. Can I book somewhere tonight?’

Freda didn’t trust herself to speak at first. ‘Well, yes, tonight is good,’ she said eventually.

‘Where would you like to go?’

‘I don’t know . . . anywhere. I like Ennio’s down on the quays, I go there with my friends sometimes for a treat.’

‘Well, I don’t want to muscle in on your special place for you and your friends. What about Quentins, that’s good too, isn’t it? Is eight OK with you?’

‘Eight o’clock it is,’ Freda said.

He grinned, and then ostentatiously took her hand and kissed it.

When he had gone, Freda raised her hand to her cheek and held it there. She didn’t know it but she was being watched by her aunt Eva, her friend Lane, Miss Duffy, Lionel the poet and a young girl who happened to be looking for a job as a cleaner.

They all saw Freda’s face as she moved her hand slowly to her lips. The hand that the man had kissed. Something momentous had just happened in front of their eyes.

The rest of the day passed. Somehow.

Lane said, ‘Have you anything to tell me?’

Freda had asked, ‘About puffins?’

‘No, about men coming in and kissing your hand.’

Tomorrow, Freda had promised.

He was already there when Freda went into Quentins. He wore a dark grey suit and a crisp white shirt. He was very handsome. He grinned and stood up to welcome her as Brenda, the elegant owner and manager, led Freda to the table.

‘I thought you might like a glass of champagne, but I didn’t order for you,’ he began.

‘Right on both counts,’ Freda said, smiling. ‘I would indeed like a glass of champagne, but thank you for not assuming.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, I hope,’ he said. ‘I’m so pleased to see you – you look terrific,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

‘Well you do, you are very beautiful, but that’s not just why I asked you to dinner.’

‘Why did you ask me?’ she genuinely wanted to know.

‘Because I can’t get you out of my mind. I loved what you said about that man’s poetry, the elegant sadness of it. Someone else would have taken twice as many words to say it. And then you got all excited about those schoolgirls and their reading groups; you enthused them all and you have so much energy, so much life radiating from you. Since the first moment I saw you in the library I noticed it; I see it here. I wanted to be part of it. That’s all.’

‘I don’t know what to say. I’ve been lucky; I’m very happy in my job, and life and everything . . .’

‘And are you happy to be here? Now?’

‘Very,’ Freda said.

They talked easily.

He wanted to know everything about her. Her school, her college, the home she lived in with her parents and sisters. How she had got her job at Finn Road Library. Her little flat at the top of a big Victorian house. Her eccentric aunt who wrote the long-running ‘Feathers’ column in the newspaper, and took Freda on birdwatching outings.

‘Sounds like a lark,’ he said solemnly.

‘I can’t top that,’ she snorted. ‘It’s your tern again.’ And they both collapsed laughing.

He seemed interested in every single thing she had ever done in her life. The conversation moved towards holidays, and whether it was worth all the hassle of going away to the sun just for one week, or whether you had to be an athlete to go skiing. Wasn’t that amazing – he had been to the very same Greek island, wasn’t the world a very small place? They liked the same movies, the same songs. He had even read some of Freda’s favourite books.

Freda asked him about his life too. After all, it was like a blind date; they knew nothing about each other, yet here they were, sitting having dinner in one of Dublin’s best restaurants. He had been brought up in England, in an Irish family. His parents still lived there, and his brother. No, he didn’t see much of them, he said sadly. He shrugged it off, but Freda could see that it hurt him.

He had been to university in England, studied marketing and economics but it wasn’t nearly as important as all he had learned through his experience in the leisure industry. He had been in car hire, in yachting charter, in mass catering, all the time learning about what made business tick. He had worked in London, New York and now Dublin; even though he had come here as a child on holidays it was still a new city to him. He was now working for a leisure group that was going to invest in Holly’s Hotel; they wanted to develop it into a major leisure complex.

‘I’m sure it all sounds dull to you but it’s really exciting, and it’s not all about money,’ he said eagerly. ‘And I would love to know more about the history of the area. You could be very helpful.’

He hadn’t found a proper place for himself yet, so he just had a room in the hotel. It was good to be on the premises, as it meant he could see what kind of business the place was. It was such a personal hideaway, the kind of place people believed they had actually discovered for themselves. The staff remembered your name, they seemed eager for you to enjoy the experience of being there. No wonder they were successful.

On the day of the rainstorm, he’d been in a meeting with the developers which had run late, and he’d been dashing along Finn Road just as the downpour was at its worst. It was only a happy accident, pure chance that he’d seen the library was open and decided to take shelter for a while. That’s when he’d spotted her. Suppose he’d just gone on down the street? Suppose the meeting had ended on time and he’d got away before it had started raining?

‘You and I might never have met.’ He laughed, and gave a mock shiver to think this could have been on the cards.

Freda felt her shoulders relax. She loved Holly’s Hotel just as it was; it was a great place for a celebration, and the idea of it being turned into a ‘leisure complex’ sounded awful. But it didn’t matter by what chance she had been introduced to this exciting man, who for some impossible-to-understand reason seemed to fancy her greatly. She gave a sigh of pure pleasure.

He smiled at her and her heart melted.

Freda hoped that he wouldn’t want to come home with her. The flat was in a total mess, and there was all the business of it being a first date and being thought a slapper, and if he were going to come to her place she would need a week getting it ready. Suppose he suggested going to Holly’s Hotel?

But he wouldn’t, would he, he had too much class.

Or maybe he didn’t want to all that much?

They were the last people to leave the restaurant. Quentins arranged a taxi for them. Mark said he would see her home. When the cab stopped, he got out and saw her to the door.