Quentins (22 page)

Maggie knew Ms. Brennan wasn't an emotional person. Not someone you might hug. But Maggie still put a hug in her eyes. And saw it had been received. The woman swallowed and spoke slowly.

“In fact, Maggie, as you must realize, I'm very much understating it—it's a habit you get into at work. It all worked out better than we could have dreamed. It's we who owe you—that's why you were our guests tonight and you must come again.”

“When my parents are twenty-five years married, maybe?” Maggie said with a smile.

Brenda Brennan agreed. “That, or when your brother gets picked to play soccer for Ireland. My brother-in-law out in the kitchen recognized him—he wants his autograph. Would it be all right if he could ask your brother for it, do you think?”

“I think it would make this into the most Serious Celebration this family has ever known,” Maggie said.

D
rew had never been to Ireland in his life. And had never even considered going there until the company announced that the sales conference would be held in Dublin. Moira said it would just be a piss-up excuse to waste even more money than usual. “The company is paying for it all,” Drew protested.

“Not for everything,” Moira said. She knew that there would be pints and outings and items that no company would pay for.

Drew and Moira had been going out together for three years. A lot of things were agreed between them but nothing was settled. They loved each other, that was agreed, and they would marry and have two children one day, that was agreed. But
when
this would happen was not settled.

Moira wanted them to get a house, which meant having a deposit. Drew wanted them both to move into his flat, which was cheaper than Moira's. Moira wanted them to have a big wedding with all their friends and relations. Drew wanted them to have six people at the registry office with pints and sandwiches afterward.

Moira thought you had only one crack at life and you should give it your all, like putting away a certain amount of money each week. Drew thought you had only one crack at life and you should enjoy yourself first time round.

Moira realized that there was no way Drew wouldn't go to a sales conference in Dublin, which he insisted on thinking of as a freebie outing but which she knew would cost money. Drew realized that he was going to have to come to some decision about all this very soon. He had given up the Friday night out with the lads, and he had given up the thought of ever having a decent new jacket. Now it looked as if he were going to have to give up the notion of having any extras while he was on this great trip.

When he kissed her good-bye before the conference, they both knew that something would have to be settled by the time this meeting was over. They were nervous because they didn't dare to say it to each other. It was too big, too important in their lives.

When Drew got to Dublin he stayed in a big, modern hotel. The first night, Drew told his colleagues that he was way behind with his figures. He'd love to come out with them on the town, but seriously now, they'd have to forgive him this time. They accused him of being overeager and ambitious. He was going to be a tycoon, they said, a captain of industry.

Drew grinned weakly. He was trying to save the twenty pounds he would have spent in the pubs and more, much more, if they had gone on to a nightclub. He saw there were tea-making facilities in the hotel, so he would have tea and biscuits and look at what was on television. He might even do what he had said and look over his sales figures, examine some trends.

If only he got a promotion, then he and Moira would not have to set aside an amount that meant they literally had nothing to spend on fun anymore. He yearned to talk to her, hear her say something loving, to remind himself why all this self-denial was necessary. But they had to pay for their own calls;
phoning Scotland would have been a huge extravagance.

The Irish lottery was on. That's what he needed, win that and come back a millionaire. But it was too late. If only he had bought a ticket on the way in from the airport. He saw later that there had been six lucky winners. He could have been one of them with never a financial worry again. But it hadn't happened.

Drew began to feel unreasonably irritated with those six lucky winners. What had they done, after all, except have the time to buy a lottery ticket? But he tried to get this very useless and destructive envy out of his system. He reminded himself that people made their own luck and created their own chances. He had read enough of this in management books to believe it might even be true.

The next chance he got he would take. There were many chances that he could take now, this very minute. He would just learn the names of all the senior people who would be addressing them tomorrow and study the little biographies that were among the papers they were all meant to look at.

Maybe he might look brighter than he was. Possibly someone could pick Drew for a promotion. It happened all the time.

Next day, he did seem to be brighter than the others, mainly because he had been asleep some four hours before any of them. And he hadn't discovered how much better Guinness tasted when drunk by the River Liffey in great quantities. So this was possibly why he was among twenty of the group chosen to go to dinner at Quentins.

Drew found out that not only was the company paying, but they would all go there and back in taxis, so this was another huge saving.

Quentins was certainly very elegant. You had to ring at the door to get in. They had a notice saying that this way they could welcome their guests. Drew decided they probably also liked to keep out unsuitable people. He must remember the details of it all to tell Moira.

Moira worked as a waitress and would love to move to a classier place. She would even press her face to the windows of smart restaurants at home to get the feel of smart places. She would love to be walking in by his side tonight, to a place like this.

Would it ever happen? Or would he put so much in his savings that there would be nothing left for him ever to have a treat like a night out in Quentins or somewhere of its class?

Some of the lads he had been at school with were into great schemes for making money. One of them had a big line in issuing fake certificates for old motor cars.

Drew would have been able to do this and square it with his conscience. People spent far too much time and bureaucracy on cars anyway. But of course Moira wouldn't hear of it. Only crims did that, she said. Moira and her family had a great fear of criminals and what they called the crim mentality.

Sometimes it would have been much easier not to love Moira, she was so unbending in her ways. Not flexible like other girls he had known. And she didn't understand how hard it was to go on a trip like this and be thought tightfisted. She would say something stupid about the bosses watching him and how impressed they'd be.

That wasn't the way it happened in the real world. The boss class often spent more than anyone else.

Still, here he was now on a real fancy night out and he was going to enjoy it. Maybe they might give away little boxes of Irish chocolates or bits of Irish glass as well,
then he'd have a present for Moira and for his mother's birthday.

Drew thought to himself that it would be nice not to have to be so obsessed with money and the price of things. Not to be looking at the floor endlessly in case someone had dropped a bankroll. Would he give it into the authorities if he found one? Oh, how he would not!

When they were all in the restaurant they were shown to two round tables for ten. The young waiters and waitresses were Europeans from different lands, all smartly dressed in their dark trousers and white jackets.

Around them moved an elegant woman, Ms. Brennan, apparently, who put everyone at their ease, translating the names of dishes casually, as if they had all easily known them already. She had a way of explaining how they were made as if it were peculiar to the restaurant. She even said in a conspiratorial whisper to Drew and his end of the table that they must be very highly thought of indeed, since the best of wines had been ordered and no effort was to be spared.

His mind wandered back to the unfairness of life. Why could some people have this lifestyle all the time, and for others like himself must it be a one-time-only that he would explain to Moira at second hand.

He didn't even need a whole sixth of the lottery. Just a few hundred pounds would be fine.

He dragged himself back to the conversation the others were having. It was about a girl with big sad eyes sitting at the next table. The table was set for two, but she was alone.

Some of his mates thought she might be persuaded to join them. Drew had his doubts. Quentins didn't look like a place where you could pick up a bird at a nearby table. And she looked tearful. Quite possibly having drunk a little too much. Wiser much to leave her where
she was. “Aw, don't mind Drew, he's in love,” someone said.

He was, he knew it, but unless he had some more money soon, he might not be and that was very frightening. Drew decided to think about something else.

Nobody was talking to Mr. Ball, the department head, an anxious, uncommunicative man with no small talk whatsoever. But it was either talk to Mr. Ball or think about Moira. And the same Moira had often said that everyone was interesting if only you could find their subject.

“Are you a golfer, Mr. Ball?” Drew asked desperately.

“Oh, no, Drew, never saw the sense of it, actually,” Mr. Ball said, closing the door to any more talk of that.

Drew wasn't giving up. “But you look so fit, Mr. Ball, I thought you must do
some
sport and I know I once asked you, did you play football, and you said no.”

Mr. Ball looked left of him and right of him and then he told Drew in endless detail about his visits to the gym. There was no point in going once or twice a week, he said. You had to go five days a week. Fortunately, this hotel here in Dublin had a reasonable workout room. Had Drew seen it? No? Well, Mr. Ball would show him round it tomorrow.

“I'm sorry to drone on about money, Mr. Ball, but is that gym you go to back home expensive?”

Mr. Ball mentioned the annual figure and saw the look on Drew's face.

“Of course, when you get to the next level in the firm, if you're promoted, the company will pay for your subscription. It's in their interest to have fit personnel,” he said. In truth, he had never thought of Drew as on the fast track.

“And tell me about
your
program, Mr. Ball,” Drew said in desperation, nailing onto his face a smile of interest as he heard about muscles and movements and
routines. He nodded and shook his head as he heard of machines that did all they promised and those that did not. He got an ache in his face but Mr. Ball thought that Drew was fascinated. Drew saw that Mr. Ball was loath to leave the conversation and only had to do so out of a sense of duty.

Drew joined his own colleagues again. They were still talking about the girl and speculating about whether she might be an available companion for the evening.

“Get sense,” Drew advised them. “She'd be no fun at all. Look at her, she's crying. Didn't any of you notice?”

At that moment, Miss Brennan, the manageress woman, had arranged that the customer with tears in her eyes be helped to the door gently and discreetly by one of the young waiters. The taxi had already been phoned by the restaurant. Possibly she was someone who ate here regularly and maybe drank a little too much. Someone worth looking after. It was all done with great dignity, Drew noticed. Then Drew saw the wallet on the floor.

He leaned back and put it into his pocket. Nobody had seen. He went to the men's room. Inside the stall he opened it. A big black, soft leather folder. It had credit cards, receipts, tickets for a theater and a letter.

It also had plenty in cash.

Silly girl, drunk on her own, leaving without checking. She could have lost it in the taxi. Or on the pavement while getting into the taxi. Or getting out of the taxi.

He would take the cash and tomorrow he would mail the wallet back to the restaurant anonymously.

He never knew when he decided to read the letter. He wasn't a criminal, just someone taking a chance. She was called Judy and she wrote to some guy saying she was sorry to plead and beg with him to have this last dinner with her, but she had so many things to tell him, how much she loved him and how nothing else mattered. And
she had to tell him that she was pregnant, but she would be noble about it and never tell his wife.

And Judy would not ask him for child support. She wanted nothing from him except the memory of their love and the hope of their child in the future. She would have this last dinner, leave early and hand him this letter and then go out of his life. She wanted only that he would know how much he had been loved.

Drew sat there and thought about love and deception and how some people had it really very, very difficult indeed.

He left the men's room and went straight to Ms. Brennan.

“I found this under a table,” he said.

“Yes, I sort of noticed you did,” she said.

She wasn't disapproving or anything.

“Did you know anything about the . . . um . . . the situation?” he asked.

“A little. It was not a happy one, but I don't think I want to go into any of that . . .”

“It's just I'm from miles away. I'll never be here again. I wondered should anyone tell him she's pregnant.”

If Miss Brennan was startled that he revealed this to her, admitting that he had read a private letter, she made no criticism.

“I don't think that will change anything at all one way or the other,” she said reflectively.

“But shouldn't a man know that he was going to be a father? She intended giving it to him tonight, but he didn't show up.”

“He's quite good at not showing up, it never stops the ladies.” She shook her head at the folly of people and their relationships.

“So he'll never know?” Drew was astounded.