Quentins (3 page)

“Very droll.” Deirdre still wondered what they could be hiding.

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Dee. Remember them at the wedding in their sharp suits and their eyes never still, moving around the room? Those fellows have never known what it was like to keep proper books or pay proper tax in their lives.”

“You think all builders are unreliable, that's your prejudice.” Deirdre was spirited.

“No, I don't, look at Tom Feathers! His family are aboveboard. Lots of them are. It's just Frank's lot to make me shudder.”

“If you're right, do you suppose they have our pal Nuala drawn into it all?” Deirdre wondered.

“Poor Nuala. I'd just hate to be wrapped up with that lot,” Ella said.

“Now, funnily enough, I'd find being wrapped up with Eric, that eldest brother, no problem at all,” Deirdre laughed.

“You might get your chance, they're going to have a family gathering here in Dublin for Frank's parents. We're invited,” Ella read at the end of the letter.

“Great. I'll get one of those garter belt things.”

“No, Deirdre, you won't, it's only three years since the wedding, they won't have forgotten you. We'll keep well away from Frank's family.”

The party was very showy. There were even columnists and photographers at it. Frank and his three brothers posed endlessly as an Irish success story. They were
photographed with politicians, celebrities, with their parents and their wives.

“It's very fancy for a fortieth wedding anniversary, isn't it . . . all this razzmatazz. I think that the old folk look a bit bewildered,” Deirdre said.

She pushed her sunglasses back on her head to study the party more seriously.

“No, they're well able for it, the mum and dad, for them it's a triumphal celebration. It's look at what a success Our Boys have made in life.”

“Why don't you like them, Ella?”

“I don't know, I really don't, to be honest.”

“Do you think Nuala's happy?”

“I think so, a bit hunted. But she got what she wanted, so I suppose that's happy.”

Ella always remembered that remark because just as she was saying it a man beside them was jostled against her by a press photographer. “Please, Mr. Richardson, can we have you in the group?”

“No, thanks all the same, but this is a family party. It's not appropriate.”

“It would make sure we got it in the paper?” The cameraman was persuasive, but not enough.

“No thanks, as I said, I'd really much prefer to talk to these two lovely ladies.”

Ella turned at the calm, very forceful voice. And she looked at Don Richardson, financial consultant, whose picture was indeed often in the newspapers. But they had never done him justice. He was good-looking certainly—dark, curly hair, blue eyes—but he had a way of looking at you that excluded everyone else in the room. Ella knew she hadn't imagined this because out of the corner of her eye she saw Deirdre shrugging slightly and moving away. Leaving her alone with Don Richardson.

Ella had never been able to flirt. Her friend Nick said
it was a weakness in a woman. Men just loved that come-on look from under the eyelashes. Ella was too up front he said, lessened the magic somehow. She wished she had listened to Nick. Now for the very first time she wanted to know how to do it.

Even if she had five minutes with Deirdre, but her friend had gone to hover in the danger area of Frank's brothers.

It turned out not to be necessary.

He held out his hand to her with a great smile. “Ella Brady from Tara Road, how are you? I'm Don Richardson. It's such a pleasure to meet you.”

“How do you know my name?” she croaked.

“I asked a couple of people, Danny Lynch, the property guy, he told me. He lives near you, apparently.”

Ella heard herself saying, “Yes, well, near my parents, actually. I've moved out of home, you see, and I have my own place.”

“Why am I very pleased to hear that, Ella Brady?” he asked. He hadn't stopped smiling and he hadn't stopped holding her hand.

E
lla got home from the hotel somehow on her own. She thought afterward that she must have taken a taxi, but she literally didn't remember. She sat down and looked around her for a long time before she took stock of it all. This was
not
happening to her. This was the stuff of silly movies or magazine stories, which had to have the love-at-first-sight theme running through them. Don Richardson was just a known charmer, a professional who made his money by saying “trust me” to people, by holding their hands for a little too long, by letting his eyes lock into theirs. There was obviously a Mrs. Richardson in the room tonight, maybe a history of several of them. There were little Richardsons at home, all of whom would need quality time. Ella Brady was
not
going to go down this road. She had mopped the tears of too many friends who had told her fantasy tales of men who were going to leave their wives. She would not join their number. Women had an amazing capacity to fool themselves, Ella had seen it over and over. She would never be part of it.

He was waiting outside the school next morning. Sitting in a new BMW and smiling as she approached. Ella wished that she had dressed better. But he didn't seem to notice.

“Are you surprised?” he asked.

“Very,” she said.

“Can you sit with me for a moment? Please,” he asked.

“I have to get to class.”

She sat in his car. She wanted to make some kind of joke, some wisecracking remark that would disguise how nervous and excited she felt.

But she decided to say nothing at all. Let him explain what had to be explained.

“I'm forty-one years old, Ella, married for eighteen years to Margery Rice, daughter of Ricky Rice, who is theoretically my boss, or at any rate the money in our company. I have two sons, aged sixteen and fifteen. Margery and I have a dead marriage, it suits both of us to stay together, at the moment anyway. It certainly suits her father and it suits our two sons. We share a home out in Killiney, by the sea. I also have a business flat in the Financial Services Centre.

“Margery spends most of her day golfing or running charity events. We live entirely separate lives. You would be breaking up nothing, nil, zilch, zero if you were to say that you would have dinner with me tonight in Quentins at around eight
P
.
M
.” He put his head on one side, as if waiting for her argument.

“I'd like that, see you there,” Ella said, and got out of the car. She felt her legs shaking as she went into the staff room. Ella Brady, who had never taken a class off in her teaching life, went straight to the principal and said she had to leave the school at lunchtime, it was an emergency. She booked a haircut, a manicure and a leg wax. She bought fresh flowers for her flat, changed the sheets and tidied the place, examining it with a critical eye. It was probably a wasted effort. But it was wiser to be prepared.

“You got your hair done,” he said as she joined him in one of the private booths at Quentins.

“You went home and changed too. Long trek out to Killiney and back,” Ella said, smiling.

“Separate lives, Ella, either you believe me or you don't.” Don had an extraordinary smile.

“Of course I believe you, Don. Now that that's out of the way, we never have to mention it again.”

“And do I have to get anything out of the way? Long-term loves, jealous suitors, possible fiancés in the wings?”

“Nothing at all,” she said. “Believe me or don't.”

“I totally believe you, what a wonderful dinner we are going to have,” he said.

The evening passed too quickly. She reminded herself over and over that there must be no brittle jokes about it being time to send him home.

He had dealt with that side of it already. They were meeting as free agents or not at all. He told her about a lunch they had in the office today, for the first time with outside caterers, and how it must be the hardest job on earth preparing and clearing up after businessmen who all wanted endless vodka and tonics without letting their bosses see just how much they were knocking back.

They were marvelous kids, he said, ran the thing like clockwork, he'd get them more work. Didn't even want to be paid in cash, said they had some accountant who went ballistic over taxes and everything. Ella said that she thought everyone did.

“Sure they do, of course they do. I was only trying to give these two at Scarlet Feather a break.”

“Oh, Scarlet Feather, I know them! Tom and Cathy, they're great people,” Ella said, pleased they had someone else in common.

“Yes, they seemed fine. I'd hire them again. They're not going to get rich quick, but that's their business.”

He seemed for a moment to think less of them
because they weren't going to get rich quick. A shadow came over it all. Maybe Rice and Richardson liked people who made lots of money.

“How do you know the builders Eric and his brothers?” she asked.

“Oh, business,” he said quickly. “We handle a few investments for Eric and the boys. And you?”

“My friend Nuala is married to Frank, the youngest brother,” she said.

“Some small city. Imagine you knowing that catering couple as well. Anyway, Angel Ella, now tell me about your lunch.”

She told him about the elderly teacher who was afraid they would all get radiation from the microwave, and the sports teacher who had lost his front tooth biting into a hard French roll. She told him about the third-year students sending up a petition about school uniforms being a danger to girls as they were maturing, since it made them objects of ridicule. None of these things had happened today, because Ella had been racing around getting her flat cleaned and her body prepared for what might lie ahead. But as stories they were real incidents from other lunchtimes in the staff room, and they made him laugh. And with Don Richardson it was going to be important to keep him laughing.

If you wanted to be his friend or whatever, there would be no place for moody.

No place at all.

He drove her back to her flat.

“I enjoyed this evening,” Don Richardson said.

“Me too.” Her throat was tight and her chest constricted. Did she ask him? They were free agents. Or was it sluttish? And why should it be sluttish for the girl, not the man? She would wait and take her timing from him.

“So, since I have your telephone number, maybe we can go out again, Angel Ella?” he said.

“Yes, please.” She kissed his cheek and got out of the car while she still had the strength to do so.

He waved and turned the car.

She would not spend
any
time wondering would he drive eleven miles south to Killiney and the dead marriage or one mile north into the city to the bachelor pad.

She let herself into the flat and looked accusingly at the vase of expensive fresh flowers she had arranged before she had left.

“Fine lure you were to get him back here,” she said.

The flowers said nothing.

Maybe I should get myself a cat or a dog, something that might grunt at me when I come back here alone, Ella thought. But then, she might not always be coming back here alone.

It was her father's birthday next day. Ella had bought him a gift certificate for a hotel in County Wicklow. An old-fashioned place with a big, rambling garden. When she was a child, they sometimes drove down there for Sunday lunch. He used to point out the flowers to her and she would learn the names. Ella remembered her mother smiling a lot there, sitting and pouring out afternoon tea in the garden.

Maybe it would be a nice, peaceful place for them to go and stay. The gift certificate covered dinner, bed and breakfast. It could be used anytime in the next month. Surely they would like that?

They loved the idea, both of them. Ella felt tears at the back of her eyes to see such gratitude.

“What a wonderful gift, just imagine it,” her father said over and over.

Ella wondered why had he never thought of such a thing himself if it was so great. Her mother was delighted too.

“The three of us all going down to Holly's
and
staying the night!” she said.

Ella realized with a shock that they thought she was going with them as well.

“So when will we go?” Her father was excited now, like a child.

“A Friday or a Saturday?” she suggested. She couldn't ruin it all now by explaining that she hadn't meant to come with them.

“You choose,” Father said.

Don wouldn't ask her out on a Saturday, that would surely be family time.

They fixed to go the following Saturday. Just as Ella was about to call the hotel and make the booking, her cell phone rang.

“Hallo,” Don Richardson said.

She noted that he hadn't said his name. It was arrogant in a way to assume that she knew who it was. But she was no good at playing games.

“Oh, hallo,” she said pleasantly.

“Is it okay to talk?” he asked.

“Oh, it's always okay,” Ella said, but she got up and moved out toward the spiral steps down to the garden at the same time. She gave an apologetic shrug to her parents as if this were a duty call she had to take.

“I wondered if you'd like to have dinner Saturday?”

She looked behind her into the sitting room. Her parents were examining the brochure for Holly's as if it were some kind of map of a treasure trove. She could not cancel it now.

Ella held on to the wrought iron rail. “I'm so sorry, but I've just arranged something, literally in the last few minutes, and it would be a bit difficult you see to—”

He cut her off.

“Never mind, it was on the off chance, there'll be other evenings.”

He was about to go. She knew she must not begin to
burble at him, but she was so very eager to keep him on the line.

“I
wish
I didn't have to—”

“But you have,” he said crisply before she could cancel her parents' outing and go with him wherever he suggested. “So catch you again.” And he was gone.

All during dinner her heart felt like a stone. And later, she helped her mother with the washing up and they had the most extraordinary conversation.

“Ella, you couldn't have done anything that would please your father more, it's just what he needs. He's been very pressured at work.”

“Then why didn't
you
take him to Holly's, Mother?” Ella hoped her tone was not as impatient as she felt inside. Her mother looked at her, amazed.

“But what would we have done there together, just the two of us looking at each other? We might as well just stay here looking at each other if there was to be just the two of us.”

Ella looked at her mother in shock. “You can't mean that, Mam?”

“Mean what?” Her mother was genuinely surprised.

“That you don't have anything to talk about with Dad.”

“But what
is
there to talk about, haven't we said it all?” Her mother spoke as if this were the most glaringly obvious thing in the world.

“But if that's the way it is, why don't you leave him, why don't you separate?” Ella stood with the dinner plate in her hand. Her mother took it away from her.

“Oh, Ella, don't be ridiculous, why on earth would we want to do that? I never heard of such nonsense.”

“People do, Mam.”

“Not people like me and your dad. Come back inside now and we'll talk about this great visit to Holly's.”

Ella felt as if a light, warm woolen blanket had been put over her head and was beginning to suffocate her.

She went to the cinema with Deirdre and for a drink afterward. They talked normally, as always. Or so Ella thought. Then Deirdre ordered another drink and asked Ella, “They're serving sandwiches. Do you want one?”

“What?” Ella said. “Oh, yes, whatever.”

“I'll get you one with mouse's dirt and bird droppings in it, then,” Deirdre said cheerfully.

“What?”

“Oh, good. Welcome back, you're awake again,” Deirdre laughed.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Ella, you saw none of the movie, you haven't said a word to me, you've bitten your lip and shuffled about. Are you going to tell me or are you not?”

She had told Deirdre everything since they were thirteen, but she couldn't. It was odd—there was too much to tell and too little. Too much in that she had fallen in love with an entirely wrong man
and
that her own parents' thirty-year-old marriage, which she had always thought was very happy, was fairly empty. And yet too little to tell. To Deirdre it would all be simple. She would say that Ella should go for the man, married or not. Take what she wanted and not get hurt. And Deirdre would say that everyone's parents had rotten marriages, it's just the way things were.