Quentins (16 page)

T
here were so many stories about Quentins, it was hard to sort out which they could use and which to throw away. Setting up a movie seemed to cost a great deal of money. They pored over their budget with anxious faces. Sandy had some money in a savings account which she willingly put into the fund. Nick mortgaged his apartment and raised a reasonable sum. But of course, if they were going to make a film that would win prizes and awards, they would have to have high production values and it would mean asking for serious finance from the King Foundation. They had received their application form and took great care filling it in.

“I'll have to work much harder than you two because I have nothing to invest,” Ella said. “So today I brought us a bottle of champagne that a customer gave me in Colm's last night. Imagine, he said he didn't want to insult me with money! If he only knew how ready I was to be insulted with money.”

They laughed as they got great tumblers and poured it out. They toasted Firefly Films, Quentins, and the King Foundation in New York.

As they drank the bottle of champagne, Nick said they must be realistic. They were looking for something that was way out of their league. “It's not Mickey Mouse money this time,” he said, frowning.

Sandy tried to make light of it. She hated to see Nick frown. “Don't knock Mickey Mouse. He made a lot of money for Walt Disney in his time,” she said.

He grinned feebly. “Sandy, I'm only saying aloud what we're all thinking. Maybe we can come up with another terrific idea. Ella got us this far. All we need is another leap now.”

Ella saw the shadow pass over Sandy's face. “I didn't get us very far. It was Sandy who wrote out the whole proposition that won the pitch. And in addition, as soon as this champagne's finished I'm going to have to leave you and look for more paid work with other people. I hate to do it, but you know the scene.”

“Are your parents in the shed yet?” Nick asked.

“Yes, we all are, but we actually call it the annex, to make ourselves feel better.”

“Is it very cramped?” Sandy wanted to know.

“Not too bad, amazingly. Colm knew some builder in the early days, and they do each other favors. Anyway, this fellow built us a grand place with lots of windows in the roof so at least there's plenty of light coming in and there's a whole bank of storage lockups so that my mother can keep things for when we get out of debt again. I even put my things in there.”

“And will you? Ever get out of debt?” Nick was blunt.

“I don't know. I wouldn't think so, but it's a start, and my father's calmed down again. For a while I thought he was going to be in a mental home. People know he's doing his utmost to pay them back and that's a help. And two of the flats are already occupied in what we now call the main house; two more ready by the end of next week. That's not bad recovery.” She forced her voice to sound cheerful.

Sandy and Nick nodded with respect. Compared to what the Bradys were going through, their own problems were small. They would find the money for their project,
or they wouldn't, at least they didn't owe real money to anyone.

“What work are you going to do?” Nick asked.

“Deirdre's got me a part-time job up in her lab. I've got two nights a week waitressing in Colm's, two nights a week for Scarlet Feather, you know your pals Tom and Cathy, weekends in Quentins, and wait for it, two hours a week teaching a pair of twins maths and basic science. They're something else, those two. They keep asking me am I part of the New Poor. I don't know where they heard the term but they love it.”

“Doesn't sound as if there's much time for a social life,” Nick said.

“Oh, Nick, I've had as much social life in the last two years as any girl needs,” she laughed wryly.

“Was it as long as that?” He seemed disappointed that her affair had gone on for such a time.

“Give or take a bit,” she said. “In my case, mainly give, but who's counting.”

Afterward Sandy asked her very confidentially, “Do you think Nick likes me at all, Ella, or am I just wasting my time?”

“Oh, I think he likes you a great deal, Sandy. But I beg of you, don't listen to me, what do I know about men and what they like and don't like? Nothing, that's what I know.”

Deirdre said that Nuala was coming over next week. “Great, let's get a bottle of wine each and entertain her,” Ella said. “But wait, it will have to be after midnight or between four and six Wednesday and Saturday.”

“Oh, God, I can't wait till you're back in teaching and have normal hours again.”

“I'm not going back,” Ella said.

“Of course you are.”

“I can't afford to,” Ella said simply. “Why don't we say we'll have a picnic in Stephens Green. Nuala would like that, then I can get back to Quentins at six.”

“I'll check it out,” Deirdre said.

“Bad news, Ella. I'm going to give it to you straight. Nuala doesn't want to meet you in Stephens Green.”

“Okay, where does she suggest?”

“This is the hard bit. She doesn't want to meet you at all.”

“I don't believe you.”

“It's what the lady says.”

“Has she gone soft in the head or something?”

“It's got to do with Don. Her husband and his brothers lost a lot of money because of Mr. Richardson. Apparently she's feeling a bit sore about it.”

“Well, I'm sure she is, and so are a lot of other innocent people, but why doesn't she want to meet
me
? I haven't got her bloody money.” Ella was hurt and angry.

“Oh, I don't know, some garbled thing about you having a fine time out in Spanish hotels with Frank's money.”

“Isn't she a weak slob. Couldn't I do the same to her, moan and groan and say that it was at her awful in-laws' party that I met Don and ruined my life.”

“Leave it, Ella. She's not worth it.”

“But you're still going to meet her?”

“Not if you don't want me to.”

“Oh, meet her, for God's sake. What do I care?”

“Ella, come on now!”

“No, I don't care. What does one more small-minded petty self-seeker matter?”

“She used to be our pal.”

“She's forgotten that pretty quickly.”

“I'll tell you what she says,” Deirdre sighed.

“If you must.”

“I'll take her to Quentins, sometime you're not working there.”

“Yeah, make sure I'm not working when she's there. I've a neat way with very hot soup straight into someone's lap,” said Ella.

It was Ella's weekly lunchtime lesson with Simon and Maud. They lived with their grandparents in St. Jarlath's Terrace. They were bright enough but had missed out on some mathematics teaching. They were some kind of cousins of Cathy Scarlet. Ella had learned never to ask for too much detail. But then, she had never met children like Simon and Maud before. They insisted on telling her their whole life story and that they were really related to Cathy's ex-husband, the lawyer Neil Mitchell, but that through a lot of adventures and eventually court orders, they were now living with Cathy's mother and father.

They had a dog called Hooves, who had a limp. They had a brother who was on the run from the police in several countries. They had their own passports, which they had needed because they'd been to Chicago to dance at a christening party. On the plane, they had been allowed up to the flight deck. In Chicago they had . . .

“Sure, but I think we'd better get down to the algebra before I hear any more.”

“Are we boring you?” Simon asked very earnestly. “People say we go on a bit.”

“No, you're not boring at all,” Ella said truthfully. “It's just that I am being paid proper money to teach you, and I don't want to cheat your grandparents or whatever.”

“Strictly speaking, they're not
our
grandparents,” Simon began.

“So I brought this book. It's simpler than the one you have at school, but I thought if we went through it first, then when it was all a bit clearer, we could look at your book.”

“And can we have real conversation with you when we've understood it?” Maud asked.

“Certainly,” Ella said, flattered.

“It's just that we were told not to be asking you questions about your sad life, but we wanted to know all the same,” Simon explained.

Ella put her hand up to her face to hide the smile. “I'll give you blow-by-blow details if you can get your heads round these equations,” she promised.

“You're not going to spend the whole lunch looking at me as if I'm some kind of criminal?” Nuala said.

Deirdre shrugged. “No, because I'm sure you have some very good reason for behaving like a prize asshole.”

“Deirdre,
please,
there's no call for that kind of language.”

“There's every call. Ella's had enough worries. She was looking forward to seeing you, and you as good as spat in her face.”

“But, Dee, she knew what she was doing, going on luxury holidays all on Frank's money and his family's investments. You have no idea the mess that Don Richardson left behind him.”

“She spent one long weekend with him, her half term for school, she bought her own ticket, you fool.”

“I heard . . .”

“You heard what you wanted to hear, Nuala. I
know
what went on, including the fact that the man she met at
your
party lied to her, betrayed her, humiliated her, left her father without a name, house or reputation to call his own. I don't care what you know or think you
know. Let's look at the facts: Ella is working sixteen hours a day to make up what the bastard took from her parents . . . and she doesn't even have the comfort of having a picnic lunch with what she once thought was a friend.”

There was a great silence.

“Why did
you
come, then, if this is the way you feel?” Nuala said in a very small voice.

“To tell it to you straight.”

“Please tell her I'm very sorry. I didn't think it through.”

“No, I'll tell her nothing, you know her phone number. Tell her yourself.”

Nuala began to take her phone out of her handbag.

“Not here, it's not allowed,” Deirdre said.

Nuala went to the ladies' room. Brenda Brennan asked was everything all right.

“Yes, Ms. Brennan.”

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the young lady who got proposed to here in this restaurant?”

“The very one.”

“And did it all . . . er . . . work out . . . all right and everything?” Brenda Brennan could sense the tension.

“Yes, I suppose it did, he's a greedy money-mad pig of a man, but he's reasonably faithful to her and she seems content enough. The only problem in paradise is that they were burned badly by Don Richardson, of course.”

“They're not alone there.”

“No, but she had the nerve to imply that Ella had gained something out of it all.”

“Everyone knows that's not the way things were. I thought she and Ella were friends.”

“So did Ella,” Deirdre said.

“Well, thank heaven Ella has at least one good friend in you.”

“And in you, Ms. Brennan. She's very grateful to you.”

“She's working too hard, that's my only worry. She's white as a sheet. Patrick and I worry about her health, and whether she'll be able to carry on. She's taken on far too much for any one woman.”

They saw Nuala coming to the table and Brenda nodded and left to talk to another customer.

“She couldn't talk right now,” Nuala said.

“Yes, well, she'll be working, trying to pay back what that bastard stole from her father and his clients. Working while we have lunch here in Quentins.”

“Don't make me feel worse, Deirdre. Life isn't actually a bed of roses with me either, you know.”

“It never is, Nuala,” Deirdre sighed. “Come on, let's have the pasta starter and the seared tuna for the main course, and you can tell me what Frank's been up to now.”

“How on earth did you know he's been up to something?” Nuala was stricken.

“Your
face
, Nuala. It's written all over it. You have suspicions, isn't that it? You think he's looking at some woman over there in Manchester in a certain way.”

“Oh, Dee, you can read minds,” Nuala said.

“There's probably nothing in it at all.” Deirdre began giving the speech that Nuala wanted to hear. “After a few years, all couples go through this. It's only we, the old maids, who get to hear about it. They don't tell other wives.”