Quentins (39 page)

“No, Don, you didn't. You didn't
have
to do anything.”

“It's going to be all right now, Angel. You and I can go away now. We'll get that money your mother and father wouldn't take, that will get us abroad anywhere, then with the computer we can get everything sorted out.”

She looked at him in disbelief. He really meant it. He thought it was possible that she would drop everything and run away with him.

What did he think her life had been like for all these months, what kind of grasp on reality did he have?

She looked at his face to wonder how he could be so confident and loving. He really did think she was going with him.

“I can't believe that you're here, Don, walking right back into the lion's den . . .”

“You didn't give it to them Ella. I know your voice. I know everything about you, honestly I do. I know what you're like asleep and awake. I think of you all the time. I know every heartbeat. I can tell when you're lying, when you're frightened. I never knew anyone as well as
I know you. I know every breath you take.” He was shaking now, trembling, and there was heavy sweat on his forehead.

Suddenly she got frightened. She pressed the green button on her phone, which was behind her. She could hear the dialing. Please, God, may Derry be there. Please may he hear me.

“Don, believe me, I'm not going away with you,” she began.

“You are, of course, Angel Ella, and we'll be together, as we were always meant to be.”

She could hear something click on the phone behind her. May it be Derry picking up.

“I didn't come out to meet you in Stephens Green to talk about this, Don,” she said.

“Why
did
you come, then, if you don't love me, want to go away with me to have a life together? Why else did you come?”

“To say good-bye and to say sorry, I suppose.”

“Sorry? You're not saying sorry for anything, Angel. You haven't given anything to anyone. It's all somewhere, waiting for us to collect.”

“
No.
I gave it in.”

“Before or after you talked to me.”

“After,” she said, looking at the ground.

He smiled almost dreamily. “I knew, I was right about that, that I could tell when you were lying.”

“Well, can you tell now, can you tell that this much is true . . . that as soon as I put the phone down I rang the Fraud Squad and they came round and took the laptop.
And
we went and got the bag from the safe deposit. And they took that too.”

She looked at his face. He did believe it now.

“Why
did
you do this to me?”

“To have the courage to look you in the face and say it's over and you should give yourself up. Say you're
sorry. Put your hands up. There has to be
something
that can be rescued. Do your time, give the boys some dignity in their father. And your wife too, for that matter.”

He seemed contorted now. “Will you shut up. Do you hear me,
shut up,
mouthing these pious wishes. Are you going to come in and visit me in the jail for twenty-five years and wait until you are an old woman?”

She was very scared of him and that he would hit her. “I'm only just up the road from you,” she shouted over her shoulder, hoping it would reach the phone behind her.

“What are you talking about?” he cried.

“I'm saying where I am to stop myself being frightened of you, Don, and the horrible look in your eyes. I'm in Stephens Green, beside the ducks. That's where I am and I'm not afraid. It's the middle of Dublin City. You're not going to add to all you've done by hurting me.”

“Hurt you, Angel? Are you mad? I
love
you,” he cried.

“No, you never loved me. I know that now.”

“I came back for you . . .”

“You came back for your computer,” she said.

His eyes seemed very mad. Had they ever been like this before?

“Go away, Don,” she said in a weary voice. “Please go away.”

“Not without you.”

“You don't want me anymore. I've given away what you thought I had. You should never have come back.”

“You are such a stupid, stupid fool, Angel.”

“Oh, yes, Don, I was, I know now.”

He was very near her and he looked totally out of control. “You could have had everything, Angel, anything you wanted.”

“I want you to go. Maybe you might even get away. Escape before they catch you. You've plenty of friends who'll hide you.”

“Not so many nowadays, Angel. Not without the computer.”

Then she saw people moving toward them. Out of the shadows, behind the trees and bushes of the park. The mother duck had taken the little ducklings away from the scene as if she knew it wasn't the place for them to be. A place where a grown man sobbed like a child to policemen and howled out, “I did it for you, Angel. I did it all for you.”

And here Ella Brady trembled and shook in the arms of Derry King, who held her as if he were never going to let her go.

T
he meeting in Quentins that night was canceled. There had been too much drama. No one could concentrate on a possible film documentary when real life itself had been so full of passion and fear. Over and over, people told each other the events of the evening. Nick and Sandy told Deirdre how they had run out to get a taxi to Stephens Green when they heard from Derry what was happening. Brenda and Patrick told Tom and Cathy how Blouse had been crossing Stephens Green on his way back to the restaurant and seen it all. There was Mr. Richardson crying out and roaring like a child.

Barbara Brady told anyone who would listen that she had finally found her courage and her voice, possibly when it was too late. But she would remember forever that she stood up to him and told him she didn't care what happened to him in the future.

Sasha was told by her uncle Mike Martin that she was to unpack at once and reestablish herself in the Killiney house. Mike Martin himself was going abroad. Mr. Richardson would not be coming back, and the best move was to establish squatters' rights immediately.

Nuala rang Deirdre to say that two of Frank's brothers had been in Stephens Green also, in case the laptop was being handed over. They had been phoned by Mike Martin as a last-ditch effort. They had been horrified by
Don's behavior, and said that Ella had hired an American lawyer to protect her interests.

Square kind of a fellow called King.

There were photographs in the morning paper of Don Richardson in custody and some eyewitness accounts of the scene. But there was one picture of Ella captioned “woman being consoled at the scene.” Only those who knew her recognized her. Neither the press nor the public made any connection with Love Nest Ella of many months back. Except Harriet, who had met Ella on the plane to New York. She might get a couple of hundred euros if she rang a newspaper and tipped them off. But still, Ella was a nice kid. She deserved a break. And there were so many other ways of making money.

The sharp-eared witnesses who were meant to have heard everything said that Don Richardson had called out over and over, “I did it all for you.” This was hard to interpret. Some of the feature writers said that he may have been calling out to his beloved wife, who, it was understood, was still in Spain but expected imminently in Ireland. Some thought to stand at her husband's side. Others thought to answer charges.

Since the long-planned dinner in Quentins was postponed until everyone was calm enough to deal with things, everyone seemed to assume that Ella would go back to the hotel with Derry.

“I don't suppose there's a way you'd like to try the bed tonight,” he said.

“Jesus, no, Derry. I've been through enough today without considering that side of things,” she said.

“I didn't mean in bed
with
me in it, I meant you have the bed with me on the sofa.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “Sorry.”

And for some reason they found this very funny, and laughed all through the ordering of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs.

They played a game of chess, as they had often done. They talked not at all about Don Richardson, where he would be tonight, and what would happen to him. They didn't talk about Quentins either. In fact, they hardly talked at all.

And by the time Ella lay down on the sofa, which she insisted felt like home to her now, her eyes looked less frightened and her voice sounded much less shaky.

“I don't want to delay you in Dublin, Derry. We really
will
get down to work tomorrow.”

“I'm in no hurry to leave. There's a great deal to be done here,” he said as he kissed her lightly on the forehead and spread a rug over her.

“But America?” she said drowsily.

“Will survive for a bit without me,” Derry King said.

What could have happened in that week that made everyone change their minds about the documentary? And where did it start first?

Possibly in the kitchen of Quentins.

Blouse Brennan was going through the boxes of fruit. Expertly he was dividing them into the areas where they would be needed, limes and lemons at the bar, fresh berries over at the pastry table so they could be dusted with icing sugar and added at the last moment to desserts.

“I bet you they'll film you doing that, Blouse. You look very graceful,” Brenda said admiringly.

Blouse reddened. “They won't have
me
in their pictures,” he said.

“Of course they will, Blouse, and out in the vegetable garden and with the hens, aren't you the most colorful part of it all?” Patrick reassured his brother.

But Blouse didn't respond to the flattery. “I didn't think it would be nice to be in it as, well, I don't want people looking at me.”

“They'll be nice people, you know most of them, Nick and Sandy and Ella,” Brenda pleaded.

“No, I don't mean them.”

“Well, Mr. King was in here, and he was the nicest man you could ever meet.”

“No, I mean real people, outside people looking at it. People like Horse and Shay back home. The brothers who taught me, fellows who work in the allotments. I don't want them seeing me and knowing my business,” Blouse said, flushed and upset.

They knew not to let him get more distressed.

“Well, there's no question of you being in it if you don't want to, Blouse,” Patrick said.

“It would be a great loss, but it's your choice, no question of that,” Brenda agreed.

“Thanks, Brenda, Patrick . . . I don't want to let you down or anything.”

“No way, Blouse,” Patrick said through gritted teeth.

Or it could have been in Firefly Films. They got the offer they had dreamed of from the day they started. To film one of Ireland's greatest rock bands all the way through from composing and rehearsing the songs up to a huge rock festival. They would be made if they could do it, but they would need to start almost immediately.

Nick was about to refuse. They were committed to Quentins.

Sandy said they should stall them for a week, a lot could happen in six days and Derry King could easily have changed his mind.

Or it could have been Buzzo, he said he couldn't be seen in the film because nobody at school knew he worked here, and that his brothers would take any money off him if they knew he had it.

And Monica said that her husband, Clive, though the greatest darling who ever walked the earth, had been
having second thoughts about their telling their love story. People were odd in the bank, no sense of humor. They might think less of Mr. Clive Hayes if they knew he had read books in brown papers, covered books about how to be attractive to the opposite sex. Regretfully, they would have to pull their story out.

Someone had told Yan the Breton waiter that if this film was successful, it would be shown everywhere, even in his homeland. Then his father would hear him saying for the world to hear that they had not gotten on well as father and son. It was a very enclosed community. In this part of Brittany, people didn't air their problems in public. A million pardons, but he wouldn't be able to contribute.

And then Patrick Brennan finally had his annual checkup. He did all the stress tests on the treadmill and the exercise bikes. Then he sat down, still sweating mildly, to talk to the counselor as part of the checkup.

“It's a stressful job, running a restaurant, of course, but once we get this documentary out of the way, we should be fine. We've promised to take time off together, delegate more.”

“When will that be?”

“Oh, a few weeks' time, I gather. It will be hell keeping the show on the road until then, but we have to do it.”

“Why, exactly?” asked the counselor.

Brenda's friend Nora O'Donoghue was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. Brenda looked at her affectionately. She was such a handsome woman with her piebald hair and her long, flowing clothes. She had no idea that she was striking and wonderful. Even there, as she washed the vegetables in a sink, laid them out on cloths to chop and dice, she looked like some happy goddess from a classical painting.

“I wish you'd stop that and come and talk to me, Nora.”

“Listen, I'm doing three hours' work for your husband, if not for you. Come and talk to me here while I work.”

Brenda pulled up a chair. “Do you mind them filming you doing this?” she asked.

“They wouldn't want me, for God's sake, a mad old woman.”

“Oh, they would, Nora. You look lovely. I was just thinking it. Would you mind?”

“Not at all, if it's any help to you and Patrick. I'd be honored.”

Brenda looked at her with a lump in her throat, what a generous-spirited person she was. She didn't care if her mother and awful sisters, if the students in the Italian class she taught, if Aidan's colleagues, saw her scrubbing vegetables in a kitchen. What a wonderful way to be.

“You're tired, Brenda.”

“Which means you're ugly, Brenda.”

“No, it means you're worried, Brenda.”

“All right, I
am
worried. Worried sick about this documentary and that we get it right.”

“You don't need to do it,” Nora said.

“If we are to amount to anything, then let us leave some kind of legacy after us.”

Nora carefully put down her short, squat but very sharp knife and laid her hand on Brenda's. “You? Amount to anything? Legendary, that's what they call you two already. How much more do you want to amount to? You've been giving legacies into people's lives and will continue to do so forever.”

“You're kind to think we amount to a lot, Nora, but I don't see it that way. I thought this would sort of define us in a way.”

“Brenda, you have each other and all this marvelous place. In the name of God, woman, don't you have enough?”

Ella ran into Mrs. Ennis, the school principal, in Hayward's Café.

“I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you,” Mrs. Ennis said.

Ella was surprised. She had left Mrs. Ennis slightly in the lurch by departing the school so quickly. Then, too, Mrs. Ennis might have regretted her indiscretions about her own private life, which she told Ella to cheer her up.

“I was going to ask you, did you want any part-time work? I did try to call you, but none of your phone numbers worked.”

“Oh, I went into hiding for a while,” Ella admitted.

“But I gather from what I read in the papers that you're out now.” Mrs. Ennis was matter-of-fact.

“Yes, that's right, I am.”

“Does teaching still interest you? You were good. The girls liked you.”

“I did like it, very much. It was more solid than anything else, in a way.”

“But maybe solidity isn't enough.”

“I think it is now. But I have to make a film documentary first.”

“How long would that take?”

“A few weeks, Mrs. Ennis. I won't be part of the editing.”

“What's it about?”

“It's about a day in the life of a restaurant.”

“Why?” Mrs. Ennis asked baldly.

Ella looked at her for a moment. “Do you know, I'm not quite sure why. A dozen reasons along the line, partly as therapy for me at the start, I know that. Then a lot of other people got drawn in.” She seemed confused, thinking about why they were doing it.

Mrs. Ennis was brisk. “You know where we are, Ella.
Ring us within a week if you'd like to come back to us. We need you.”

“You're very kind.”

“And the other business? All right about that?”

“Oh, yes. It's as if it all happened to someone else, not me.”

“Good, then you're getting better,” Mrs. Ennis said.

She hadn't talked to Derry properly for three days. He was with his cousins morning, noon and night.

“You haven't had a fight with him?” Barbara Brady asked.

“You couldn't fight with Derry,” Ella said. She remembered his ex-wife, Kimberly, saying something similar.

When he rang later that day, he asked to see her. “We have to talk, Ella. Can we have dinner at Quentins?”

“Will I get Nick and Sandy to come?”

“No, just you.”

It turned out that he had been eating there every evening with his cousins. Sean and Michael knew the place already and had come for special treats.

“I'm sorry you're going to turn all this into a sort of circus,” Sean had said bluntly as he looked around him.

“What do you mean?” Derry wondered.

“Well, when you have all these people appearing on television, they'll become celebrities, and folks will come in to gawp at them. They won't be able to get on with their job like they did before. Before they became actors, I mean.”

“Ah, now, Sean, don't go discouraging Derry. This is his work, his business. You wouldn't like it if he were to go telling you how to paint a house,” Michael said.