Minding Frankie (29 page)

“There is no such word, no concept of an illegitimate child nowadays. The law has changed and society has changed too. People are proud of their children, born in wedlock or outside.” Frank spoke with spirit.

Des shook his head. “All very fine, very noble, but you haven’t told anyone about me yet.”

“You are
so
wrong, Des. I have indeed talked about you and said how excited I was to be going to meet you.…”

“
Who
did you tell? Not Miss Frosty in your office, that’s for sure. Did you tell your mates at the golf club or the racetrack or wherever you go? Did you say, ‘I have a boy too. I’m like you, a family man’? No way. You told nobody.”

Frank sat there, miserable. If he started to tell him about Clara it made it all the more pitiable. There was only one person to whom he had told the secret. At that moment Anton Moran appeared at their side.

“Mr. Ennis,” he said, as if Frank had been a regular customer since the place had opened.

“Ah, Mr. Moran.” Frank had the feeling of being rescued. It was as if this man were throwing him some sort of a lifeline.

“Mr. Ennis, I was wondering would you and your son like to try our lobster? It is this morning’s catch, done very simply, with butter and a couple of sauces on the side.”

Anton looked from one to the other. A sudden silence had fallen between the two men. They were looking at each other, dumbfounded.

“I’m sorry,” the younger man said.

“No, I’m sorry, Des,” said Frank. “I’m sorry for all those years.…”

Anton murmured that he would come back in a few moments to take their order. He would never know what was going on there, but they seemed to have turned a corner. At least they were talking, and soon they were ordering food. He looked over again and they were raising a glass of Hunter Valley Chardonnay to each other. That was a relief. As soon as he had mentioned the boy being the man’s son, Anton had felt a twinge of anxiety.

Possibly he had been indiscreet? But no, it seemed to be working fine. Anton breathed deeply and went back into the kitchen. Imagine—there were some people who believed that running a restaurant was all to do with serving food!

That was only a very small part of it, Anton thought.

Moira had an appointment with Frank Ennis. It was her quarterly report. She had to show the manager her case list and explain the work she had done that was costing the hospital a day and a half’s wages.

Miss Gorman, his fearsome secretary, asked Moira to take a seat and wait. Today she was, if possible, more fearsome still.

“Is Mr. Ennis very busy?” Moira inquired politely.

“They never leave him alone, pulling him this way and that.” Miss Gorman looked protective and angry. Maybe she fancied him and was annoyed that he had taken up with Dr. Casey.

“He always seems so much in control,” Moira murmured.

“Oh, no, he’s at their beck and call all day. It’s totally disrupting his schedule.”

“Who is doing this disrupting?” Moira was interested. She liked stories of confrontation.

Miss Gorman was vague. “Oh, people, you know. Fussing people saying it’s a personal matter. It’s so distracting for poor Mr. Ennis.”

She
definitely
fancied him, Moira thought, sighing over the way people wasted their lives over love. Look at that Lisa Kelly, who thought she was the girlfriend of Anton Moran despite all the women that he paraded around the place. Look at that silly girl in her own social worker team who had refused promotion because her plodding boyfriend might have felt inadequate.

Look at poor Miss Gorman, sitting here fuming because these people, whoever they were, were actually daring to ring Frank Ennis saying that it was personal. She sighed again and settled down to wait.

Frank Ennis was much more cheerful than on earlier visits. He checked her figures and report carefully.

“You certainly seem to be taking a load off the main hospital … the
real
hospital,” he said.

“I think you’ll find that the heart clinic thinks of itself very much as the
real
hospital,” Moira corrected him.

“Which is why I wouldn’t use such an expression in front of them. Credit me with
some
intelligence, Ms. Tierney.”

“It’s very well run, I must say.”

“Well, yes, they do deliver a service. I give them that much, but it’s like a mothers’ meeting in there—this one is having a baby, that one is getting engaged, the other one is getting married. It’s like a gossip column in a cheap newspaper.”

“I couldn’t agree with you less.” Moira was cold. “These are professional women; they know their subject and they do their job well. They reassure the patients and teach them to manage their own condition. I don’t see that as being in
any
way like a gossip column or a mothers’ meeting.”

“But I thought I could talk to you about it. I thought you were my eyes and ears. My spy in there …”

“You suggested that, certainly, but I never accepted the role.”

“That’s true, you didn’t. I suppose you’ve been sucked into it like everyone else.”

“I doubt it, Mr. Ennis. I’m not easily sucked into things. Shall I leave this report with you?”

“Have I annoyed you in any way, Ms. Tierney?” Frank Ennis asked.

“No, not at all, Mr. Ennis. You have your job to do, I have mine.
It’s a matter of mutual respect. Why do you think you might have annoyed me?”

“Because apparently that’s what I
do
, Ms. Tierney, annoy people,
and
you look disapproving, as if you didn’t like what you saw.”

Several people had said that to Moira, but usually in the heat of the moment when they were objecting to something she had to do in the line of work. Nobody had ever said it in a matter-of-fact way and an even tone like Frank Ennis.

“It must be the way my face is set, Mr. Ennis. I assure you, I’m not disapproving of anything you do.”

“Good, good.” He seemed satisfied. “So you’ll smile a bit from now on, will you?”

“I can’t smile to order. It would only be a grimace,” Moira said. “You know … twisting my features into a smile … it wouldn’t be real or sincere.”

Frank Ennis looked at her for a moment.

“You’re quite right, Ms. Tierney, and I hope we will meet under some circumstances that do call for a real or sincere smile.”

“I hope so,” Moira said. She thought that he was looking at her with some sympathy and concern. Imagine, this man pitied
her
!

How ridiculous.

It was a long weekend and everyone was going somewhere.

Noel and his parents were taking baby Frankie to the country for two nights. They had booked a bed-and-breakfast place outside Rossmore. There was a statue of St. Ann and a holy well there; Josie and Charles were very interested in it. Noel said he would probably give the holy well a miss, but he would take the baby for walks in the wood for the fresh air. He had shown Moira the case he had packed for the journey. Everything was there.

Lisa was going to London. Anton was going to look at a few restaurants there and she was going to take notes. It would be wonderful. Moira had sniffed, but said nothing.

Frank Ennis said that he was going to take a bus tour. It would take in some of Ireland’s greatest tourist attractions. It seemed a very unusual thing for him to do. He had someone he wanted to show Ireland to and this seemed to be the best way. It was certainly going to be interesting, he told Moira.

Emily said that she was going to see the west of Ireland for the first time. Dingo Duggan was going to drive the van, taking Emily and Declan’s parents, Molly and Paddy Carroll. They would have a great time.

Simon and Maud were going with friends to North Wales. They were bringing sleeping bags and a sort of makeshift tent. They would take the boat to Holyhead and then might find a hostel, but if not, they could sleep anywhere with all their gear. There would be six of them altogether. It would be terrific fun.

Dr. Declan Carroll and his wife, Fiona, were taking Johnny to a seaside hotel. Fiona said that she was going to sleep until lunchtime both days. They had baby minders there to look after young children. It would be magical.

Dr. Hat was going to go fishing with three friends. It was an all-in weekend with no hidden extras. Dr. Hat said he was a poor old pensioner now and had to be careful with his money—Moira never knew whether he was joking or not. It certainly wasn’t the time to bring out one of those rare smiles.

Most of her colleagues were going away or else they were having parties or doing their gardens.

Moira suddenly felt very much out of it, as if she were on the side of things looking on. Why wasn’t she going somewhere, like sitting in Dingo’s van heading west or going to see some statue in Rossmore or setting out for the lakes in the Midlands with Dr. Hat and his mates?

The answer was only too clear.

She had no real friends.

She had never needed them in life—the job was too absorbing—and to do it right you needed to be on duty all hours of the day.
Friends would find it very tedious to go out to supper with someone who might well have to disappear in the middle of the main course.

But it was lonely and restless to see everyone else with plans for the long weekend.

Moira announced that she was going home to Liscuan. She talked so little about her private life, people assumed that there must be a big family waiting for her.

“That will be nice for you, to go home and meet everyone,” Ania said. “You will have a great welcome, yes?”

“That’s right,” Moira lied.

Ania lived in a world where everyone was good and happy. She was pregnant again and taking things easy. The doctor had said that she needed bed rest, and so she lay at home contemplating a great future with their child. This time it would happen, and if lying around in bed would ensure it, then Ania was willing to do it.

Once a week, Carl drove her in to the clinic so that she could see everyone and keep up to date on what was happening. She was pleased that Moira was going to the country place for the weekend. It might cheer her up.…

Moira looked out of the train as she crossed Ireland towards her home. She had packed her little case and had no idea where she would stay. Perhaps her father and Mrs. Kennedy might offer her a bed?

Mrs. Kennedy was fairly frosty when Moira telephoned to speak to her father. “He’s having a lie-down. He always takes a siesta from five till six,” she said, as if Moira should somehow have known this.

“I’m in the area,” Moira said. “I was wondering if I could call in and see him?”

“Would that be before or after supper?” Mrs. Kennedy inquired.

Moira drew a deep breath.

“Or even
during
supper?” she suggested.

Mrs. Kennedy was more practical than welcoming. “We only have two lamb chops,” she said.

“Oh, don’t mind about me. I’m happy with vegetables,” she said.

“Will you arrange that with your father when he wakes up? We don’t know what he would want.”

“Yes, I’ll call again at six,” Moira said through her teeth. She had eased her father’s passage to live openly with Mrs. Kennedy and this was the thanks she got. Life was certainly unfair.

But then Moira knew that already from her work. Men laid off from work with no warning and poor compensation; women drawn into the drugs business because it’s the only way to get a bit of ready money; girls running away from home and refusing to go back because what was there was somehow worse than sleeping under a bridge. Moira had seen babies born and go home from the hospital to totally unsatisfactory setups while hundreds of infertile couples ached to adopt them.

Moira sat in a café waiting for the time to pass until her father woke from his siesta. Siesta! There would have been little of that in the old days. Father would come in tired from his work on the farm. Sometimes Mother had cooked a meal—most times not. Moira and Pat used to peel the potatoes so that that much was done anyway. Pat was not considered a reliable farmhand, so Dad would ensure that all the hens had been returned to their coop. He would call out until the sheepdog came home. Then he would pat the dog’s head. “Good man, Shep.” Every dog they had over the years was called Shep.

Only then would he have his supper. Often he had had to get the supper ready—a big pot of potatoes and a couple of slices of ham, the potatoes often eaten straight from the saucepan and the salt spooned from the packet.

Life had changed for the better in her father’s case. She should be glad that he had that wordless Mrs. Kennedy looking after him and cooking him a lamb chop of an evening. Why was the woman so unwelcoming? She had no fear of Moira and she should know that.
But then she had always been stern and forbidding. She seldom smiled.

With a shock she realized that this is what people actually said about
her
. Even Mr. Ennis had mentioned that Moira was very unsmiling and seemed highly disapproving of things.

When Moira rang back, her father sounded lively and happy. She knew that he spent a lot of time wood carving nowadays and had built an extra room for his work. He did most of the talking and finally said, “So are you coming for supper tonight?” as if there was never any question.