Quentins (6 page)

“They liked meeting you too, but, I expect, everyone does,” Ella said.

“Does that mean you think I'm putting on some kind of an act?” he asked, hurt.

“No, I don't think it does, you
do
like people, and you make them feel as if there's no one else in the room. It's just the way you are . . . even now.”

He looked round her flat. “Come on, there
is
no one else in the room!” he said, laughing.

“No, it's a way you have, I expect you were great at the fund-raiser thing on Sunday.” Her eyes were bright.

“I don't know,” Don Richardson said thoughtfully. “People had been generous, I was just thanking them, making them feel that they weren't being taken for granted, that the party appreciated them. It wasn't meant to be all smarmy, just gratitude.”

“Glad-handing,” she said, remembering his word.

“Yes, I was sending myself up when I said that, it's just that I would have preferred to be with you.”

“You were very good at it, I saw you,” Ella said suddenly. She didn't know why she had made this admission. Possibly because she wanted no lies, no pretending. To her amazement, he just nodded at her.

“Yes, I saw you too,” he said.

She felt her face redden with shame. He had actually spotted her “stalking him,” as Deirdre described it.

“Nick, the guy who did the video, he's a mate of mine. He wanted some help.”

“Sure.”

“Actually he didn't want any help, I just asked if I could come along too.”

“Did you, Ella? Why?” His hand rested on top of hers, lightly.

“I just wanted to see you, Don, I was very sorry too that we weren't meeting that night, to go to the do was the next best thing.”

He stood up and held her face in his hands and kissed
her. “I didn't dare believe that might be true, Ella. I've thought about it over and over since then and prayed it was true.”

“And would you ever have said that you'd seen me?”

“No, it was your business that you were there, I'd never interrogate you. Never.”

“You were very good, Don, you were tireless.”

“No, I was very tired. I drove past this house on the way back to my flat, I saw your lights on and realized you were home . . . but . . .”

“But what?” she asked.

“But our date was for tonight. I didn't want to look foolish and too eager.”

Her eyes had tears in them as she led him away from the table and to the bedroom. And it was everything that it had never been before, with Nick or with the college hero or the two one-night stands. Ella lay in his arms long after Don had gone to sleep. She was the luckiest woman in the world.

Next morning, she just offered him coffee and orange juice, and didn't fuss about breakfast. He seemed to like the lack of fuss. Possibly Margery and the boys made too much noise and crowded him out. Ella would never be like that.

She picked up a package of papers to take to school.

“What are they?” he asked, interested.

“Oh, I gave the fifth-graders a test yesterday. The good side of that is you have forty minutes' peace while they do it, the bad side is you have to mark thirty-three extra papers.”

He kissed her on the nose.

“I know nothing of your life, Ella Brady,” he said.

“Probably better to keep it that way, in case you keel over and die of boredom,” she said.

“You couldn't bore me.” He sounded very serious. “May I come back tonight, a bit latish?”

“I'd love that,” Ella said. She had been forcing herself not to ask when they would meet again.

“I'm not tying up your evening on you?” He was solicitous.

“No, I'm meeting Deirdre for an early supper at Quentins. I'll be back by nine. Does that suit?”

“I'll be here around ten, I'll have eaten a very dull and sober dinner . . . a financial committee. I have to take notes and be alert, so maybe I could drink a glass of wine or two with you?”

She gave a little shiver. Don Richardson, who had homes in Killiney, in the Financial Centre and in Spain was going to stay in her little flat two nights running. Last night in bed he had told her he loved her. It looked as if he meant it.

Ella managed to get through the day, and when she arrived at Quentins, Deirdre was waiting.

“Are you going to tell me everything?” Deirdre demanded before Ella said hallo.

“Not as much as you'll want to know, but I'll tell you a fair bit.”

“Tell me the main thing, the only thing, is he coming back for more?” Deirdre asked.

“He's going to stay the night tonight as well, yes.”

“He stayed the whole
night
. Oh my God!” cried Deirdre in such a loud voice that everyone in the restaurant looked over at their table.

“Thanks, Dee,” hissed Ella. “Why didn't you ask for a microphone, then even the faraway tables could have heard you.”

“No worries.” They were consoled by Mon, a laughing young waitress whom they both knew and liked. She had told them in the past about her unerring bad taste in men and how she had lost her heart and all her savings to a fellow in Italy. Deirdre and Ella had been sympathetic and
said that it was pretty much a global problem. Men were the cause of most of the unrest and unease on the planet.

Mon had recently found a new love, she had confided. He was older and wiser and trustworthy. His name was Mr. Hayes.

Had he a first name? they wondered. He had, apparently, but Mon liked to think of him as Mr. Hayes at the moment.

“I hope your Mr. Hayes isn't here to be shocked by my loudmouth friend Dee,” Ella said in a low voice.

“No, he's not, and he wouldn't be shocked, but tell me, did that guy with the gorgeous smile and the dark blue eyes really stay the whole
night
?” Mon whispered.

“Dee, I will stab you very hard with something,” Ella said.

“No, don't stab her. No one heard except me, and anyway, the others are all tourists. It doesn't matter if they did,” said Mon cheerfully.

Don stayed that night and the next. On Friday morning he said he was going to Spain for a few days.

“I wish I didn't have to.”

“Enjoy it,” Ella managed to say. She didn't ask if it was business or family. She didn't want to know. But he told her.

“I look after a lot of property interests out there. I need to go out at least once a month, not a hardship posting, I agree. Sometimes the boys come if it's half term or when they can get a day or two off school. But not this time. Still, I'll be back next Wednesday and maybe we can go out to a meal. I don't want you getting tired of cooking for me.”

“I enjoy it, Don, truly I do and perhaps, you know, it's wiser not to be out in public in the circumstances.”

He looked surprised. “Honestly, Angel, I told you there's no problem, it's separate lives.” He said it so often, it had to be true.

But the next day some torment made her call the Richardson home in Killiney and ask to speak to Mrs. Margery Richardson. She was prepared to hang up when the woman came to the phone.

“I'm afraid she's not here,” said the housekeeper. “She's gone to Spain. She'll be back on Wednesday.”

“Nick? It's Deirdre.”

“Oh, I know, Deirdre. You want to join Firefly Films,” he said.

“No, I don't, but I'm worried about Ella.”

“Join the club.”

“No, seriously. She's not herself, Nick.”

“When are any of us ourselves?”

“Stop being flippant, it's not funny, this guy Don Richardson, where is he at the moment?”

“He's gone to Spain. He ordered another dozen videos, to be ready when he gets back. Main thing, he seemed pleased with them.”

“That's not the main thing, Nick, the main thing is . . . Ella is miserable. Did he say it was business or going with the family?”

“How would I know? And what difference does it make?”

“So why is Ms. Brady throwing herself off O'Connell Bridge?”

“No!”
Nick cried.

“It's a figure of speech, she just won't be consoled.”

“Oh, Jesus, this love business is terrible,” Nick said sympathetically.

“Tell me about it, Nick! I'm so glad I never bought into it myself,” said Deirdre.

“It's wonderful that Ella came to us for a whole long weekend,” Tim Brady said. “Imagine, she's going to stay here until Tuesday.”

“Yes,” said his wife.

“Aren't you pleased, Barbara?”

“I'd be much more pleased if she hadn't asked us to say she wasn't here and we had no idea where she was,” Ella's mother said.

“She says she wants to cut herself off a bit from the world, have a rest.” Her father believed the story.

“Yes, but some man has rung four times. He says her cell phone is turned off, he's getting anxious and annoyed.”

“Trust Ella, it may just be some fellow she doesn't want to encourage. Does he say who he is?”

“No, and I don't ask him,” Barbara Brady said.

On Sunday the man on the phone spoke and this time he did say who he was. “Mrs. Brady, it's Don Richardson here, we had the pleasure of meeting briefly in Holly's hotel last week . . . I am most anxious to talk to Ella. I wonder if you could ask her to call me? I can give you the number.”

“Oh yes, of course, Mr. Richardson, I remember. Nice to talk to you again.”

“Yes, so if she's there . . . I wonder . . .”

“No, unfortunately she's not at home.” Barbara Brady hated telling lies. She knew she wasn't very good at it either.

“But she will be back sometime, won't she? I mean, you
will
see her, won't you?”

“Oh yes, of course,” Barbara Brady said too quickly.

He dictated his telephone number and thanked her.

“Ella?” Barbara Brady knocked on her daughter's bedroom door. “May I come in?”

“Sure, Mam.”

Ella sat hugging a cushion and rocking to and fro. She was red-eyed but not actually crying.

“Don Richardson called again.” Her mother's voice was clipped. “This time he left his name and number for you to call. He said that he was calling from Spain and I
told him that I would give you the message and the number.”

“Thanks, Mam.”

“And are you having any supper?”

“No, Mam.”

“Or any plans to tell your father and myself what's going on?”

“None at all, Mam.”

“I'll leave you to your thoughts, then.”

“I love you, Mam.”

“Three easiest words to say in the whole world, ‘I love you.' ”

“But I do!” Ella was stung.

“We will be downstairs when you love us enough to join us,” her mother said with her mouth in a very hard line.

“I don't suppose she could be involved with this Don Richardson?” her mother said in a low, frightened voice.

Ella's father was shocked. “He's a married man, Barbara, married to Ricky Rice's daughter.”

“Of course, she couldn't be so foolish.”

Ella had come to the top of the stairs and heard this. She went back to her room and stared ahead of her for a long time. It was inconvenient keeping her cell phone turned off, but she didn't want to get any messages from him, and so she kept the phone in her apartment off the receiver. She had forgotten about the school. There were two dozen red roses for her there on Monday.

“Stop hiding, I love you” was the message.

Everyone in the staff room had read it before she did. Their eyes were on her as she looked at the card.

“Oh, I never knew fifth-graders cared so much,” she said with a laugh.

As she left the room Ella heard them talking about her. “They must have cost a fortune, seventy to eighty
euros,” said one. “Bet he's married, otherwise he'd have put his name on the card,” said another.

Ella gritted her teeth and got down to work. She wouldn't have to think about him until Wednesday night. If he showed up.

He knocked at her door eight
P
.
M
. on Wednesday. He had no flowers, no wine.

“Hallo, Don.”

“What's all this about?”

“I don't understand,” she said.

“Neither do I. I said good-bye to you here on Friday morning, I told you I loved you, you told me you loved me. Then I went to Spain on business and suddenly you won't take my calls and you get your mother to lie for you. What's going on, Ella?”