Minding Frankie (33 page)

Emily had a wonderful weekend in the west with Paddy and Molly Carroll. Dingo Duggan had been an enthusiastic, if somewhat adventurous, driver. He seemed entirely unable and unwilling to read a map and waved away Emily’s attempts to find roads with numbers on them.

“Nobody can understand those numbers, Emily,” he had said firmly. “They’ll do your head in. The main thing is to point west and head for the ocean.” And they did indeed see beautiful places like the Sky Road, and drove through hills where big mountain goats came down and looked hopefully at the car and its occupants as if they were new playmates come to entertain them. They spent evenings in pubs singing songs, and they all said it had been one of the best outings they had ever taken.

Emily had told them about her plans to go to America for Betsy’s wedding. The Carrolls thought this was marvelous: a late marriage, a chance for Emily to dress up and be part of the ceremony, two kindred souls finding each other.

Dingo Duggan was less sure. “At her age marriage might all be too much for her,” he said helpfully.

Emily steered the conversation into safer channels.

“How exactly did you get your name, Dingo?” she inquired.

“Oh, it was that time I went to Australia to earn my fortune,” Dingo said simply, as if it should have been evident to everyone, and
it wasn’t asked by one and all. Dingo’s fortune, if represented by the very battered van he drove, did not seem to have been considerable, but Emily Lynch always saw the positive side of things.

“And was it a great experience?” she asked.

“It was, really. I often look back on it and think about all I saw: kangaroos and emus and wombats and gorgeous birds. I mean
real
birds with gorgeous feathers looking as if they had all escaped from a zoo, flying round the place picking at things. You never saw such a sight.” He was settled happily, remembering it all with a beatific smile.

“How long did you stay there?” Emily was curious about the life he must have led thousands of miles away.

“Seven weeks.” Dingo sighed with pleasure. “Seven beautiful weeks and I talked a lot about it, you see, when I got back, so they gave me the nickname Dingo. It’s a kind of wild dog out there, you see.…”

“I see.” Emily was stunned at the briefness of his visit. “And, er … why did you come back?”

“Oh, I had spent all my money by then and couldn’t get a job … too many Irish illegals out there snapping them all up. So I thought, Head for home.”

Emily had little time to speculate about Dingo’s mind-set and how he seriously thought he was an expert on all things Australian after a visit of less than two months, ten years ago. She had a lot of e-mailing to cope with to and from New York.

Betsy was having pre-wedding nerves. She hadn’t liked Eric’s mother, she was disappointed with the gray silk outfit she had bought, her shoes were too tight, her brother was being stingy about the arrangements. She needed Emily badly.

Could Emily please come a few days earlier, she asked, or there might well be no wedding for her to attend. Emily soothed by e-mail, but also examined the possibility of getting an earlier flight. Noel helped her sort through the claims and offers of airlines, and they found one.

“I don’t know why I am helping you to go back to America,”
Noel grumbled. “We’re all going to miss you like mad, Emily. Lisa and I have been working out a schedule for Frankie and it’s looking like a nightmare.”

“You should involve Dr. Hat more,” Emily said unexpectedly. “Frankie likes Dr. Hat, he’s marvelous with her.”

“Do I tell Moira?” Noel was fearful.

“Most certainly.”

Emily was already busy e-mailing the good news to her friend Betsy; she would be there in three days. She would sort out the dull gray dress, the tight shoes, the miserly brother, Eric’s difficult mother. All would be well.

“Moira will be worse than ever when you’re gone,” Noel said, full of foreboding.

“Just take Frankie to Hat’s place in the afternoon. He plays chess online with a boy in Boston—some student, I gather. Hat gets great fun out of it. He even asked me if I could go to visit him when I was in the States and give the boy a chess set, but I told him that I’d never have time to get all that way in such a short time.”

“Hat playing chess online! How did he ever learn how to use the computer?”

“I taught him,” Emily said simply. “He taught me chess in exchange.”

“I don’t know the half of what’s going on round here,” Noel said.

“Don’t be afraid of Moira. She’s not the enemy, you know.”

“She’s so suspicious, Emily. When she comes into the flat she shakes a cushion suddenly in case she might find a bottle of whiskey hidden behind it and looks in the bread bin for no reason, just hoping to unearth a half a bottle of gin.”

“I’ll be back, Noel, and Frankie will have grown, so she’ll need a couple of new dresses from New York. Just you wait until she’s old enough for me to teach her painting. We can start booking the galleries for twenty years ahead because she’ll be exhibiting all over the world.”

“She might too.” Noel’s face lit up at the thought of his daughter being a famous artist. Maybe he’d take out his art supplies box from
the closet. He had made sure before he moved it that there were no bottles hidden, but he hadn’t had time to draw. Wouldn’t it be a good influence on Frankie if he started drawing again?

“If she wants it enough it will happen.” Emily nodded as if this were a certainty.

“What about you? What did you want for yourself, Emily?”

“I wanted to teach art and I got that and then eventually, when they thought I wasn’t modern enough for them, I wanted to travel and I’ve started that. I like it very much.”

“I hope you won’t want to move on again from here,” Noel said.

“I’ll wait until Frankie’s raised and you’ve found yourself a nice wife.” She smiled at him.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Noel said.

He was very pleased. Emily didn’t make promises lightly, but if she had to wait for him to find a nice wife … Emily might well be here forever!

They would all miss Emily. Down at the charity shop there was already confusion. Molly said that Emily was able to judge someone’s size and taste the moment that she walked in the door. Remember that beautiful heather suit that Moira had bought and pretended she hadn’t? People whose window boxes she had planted and tended were beginning to panic that their flowers would wilt during Emily’s three-week absence.

Charles Lynch was wondering how he could keep his dog-walking business in credit. Emily was always finding him new clients and remembering to segregate dogs of different sexes in case they might do something to annoy their owners greatly. Emily did his books for him so that nobody from the income tax could say that he was anything other than meticulous.

At the doctors’ practice they would miss her too. Nobody seemed to know exactly where to find this document or that. Emily was a reassuring presence. Everyone who worked there had her mobile number, but they had been told that she couldn’t be called for three
weeks. As Declan Carroll said, it was unnerving, just like going out on a high diving board, facing all this time without Emily.

Who else would know all the things that Emily knew? The best bus route to the hospital, the address of the chiropodist whom all the patients liked, the name of the pastoral care adviser in St. Brigid’s?

“Perhaps you could get all this wedding business over within a week?” Declan suggested.

“Dream on, Declan. I don’t want to ‘get it over with.’ I’m longing for it. I want it to go on for at least two months! My very best friend getting married to a man who has adored her for years! I have to sort out shoes that turned out to be too tight, brothers, mothers-in-law, a dress that turned out to be dull. I can’t be dealing with you, Declan, and where you put your dry-cleaning ticket.”

“I suppose we’ll have to muddle through without you,” Declan grumbled. “But don’t stay away too long.”

Lisa was just the same. “We can’t phone you if Frankie starts to cough.”

“Well, you don’t normally,” Emily said mildly.

“No, but we
feel
that we could,” Lisa confessed. “Listen, while I have you, Emily, I may have slightly ballsed things up with Moira. We had a meal together and I sort of said or let drop that it was fairly exhausting cleaning Frankie, feeding her, burping her and taking her from place to place. I meant it to be a compliment to Noel, you know, and how well we are managing things, but it came out sounding like a whine or a moan, and of course Moira picked up on it and wondered were we capable of minding Frankie and all that, which was the
last
thing …”

“Don’t worry about it,” Emily advised. “I’ll have a talk with Moira.”

“I wish you’d stay and have a talk with her every day,” Lisa grumbled.

“You can always e-mail me, but, for the Lord’s sake, don’t tell everyone else that.”

“Just about Frankie,” Lisa promised.

“That’s a deal, then—just about Frankie,” said Emily, knowing that no law was so strict that it couldn’t be bent for an emergency.

Eventually Emily got away.

She could hardly believe that it was just a matter of months since she had arrived here knowing nobody and now she seemed to be making seismic gaps in their lives by leaving for three weeks. It was amazing how much she had been absorbed into this small community.

She hoped she wasn’t going to speak with an Irish brogue when she got back to the United States. She hoped too that she wouldn’t use any Irishisms such as saying “Jaysus!” like they did in Dublin with no apparent blasphemy or disrespect. It had startled her at first, but then it had become second nature.

As she got nearer to New York she became excited at all that lay ahead. She tried to force the Irish cast of characters away from the main stage of her mind. She had to concentrate on Eric’s mother and Betsy’s brother, but images kept coming back to her.

Noel and Lisa in Chestnut Court soothing the baby as they prepared for a college degree that might or might not be any help to either of them. Josie and Charles kneeling down saying the Rosary in their kitchen, remembering to add three Hail Marys for St. Jarlath and a reminder that the statue campaign was going well. Dr. Hat playing chess with the boy in Boston who had something wrong with his foot and was out of school for a week. Molly in the thrift shop wondering how much to charge for a pleated linen skirt that had never been worn. Paddy Carroll bringing round, big wrapped parcels that contained juicy bones for the dogs that passed through. Aidan and Signora singing Italian songs to three children: their own grandchild, as well as Frankie and little Johnny Carroll. She thought
about Muttie, wheezing happily to his dog, Hooves, or solving the world’s problems with his Associates. She thought about the decent priest Father Brian Flynn, and how he tried to hide his true feelings about the statue of a sixth-century saint being erected in a Dublin working-class street.

There were so many images that Emily dropped off to sleep thinking about them all. And there she was in Kennedy Airport, and, after collecting her luggage and clearing customs, she could see Eric and Betsy jumping up and down with excitement. They even had a banner. In uneven writing it said
WELCOME HOME, EMILY!
How very odd that it didn’t seem like home anymore.

But home or not, it was wonderful.

Emily talked to Eric’s mother in a woman-of-the-world manner. She managed to convey the impression that Eric was very near his sell-by date and that he was very,
very
lucky that Betsy had been persuaded to consider him. Betsy had, apparently, written over to Ireland that there were some “obstacles” in the way of the marriage. Emily couldn’t think what they might be. She looked Eric’s mother in the eye and asked if
she
knew of any. Betsy’s future mother-in-law, who was just a bit of a fusspot, started to babble a bit. Emily felt the point had been made. Betsy needed huge enthusiasm and support for her big day; otherwise she might pull out at the last moment and poor Eric would be left bereft.

Emily sorted out the shoes simply by insisting Betsy buy a pair in the correct size; she sorted out the dull dress problem by taking the very plain gray dress to an accessories store and asking everyone’s advice. Together, they chose a rose-pink-and-cream-colored stole, which transformed it.

She went to Betsy’s brother and explained that since Betsy had waited this long to get married, it had better be a classy celebration; this way she managed to upgrade the menu considerably and arranged sparkling wine.

And, of course, the wedding was splendid. Emily was pleased to
see her friend in comfortable shoes wearing a newly adorned dress. Betsy’s brother had put on a very elegant spread, and her mother-in-law had been like charm personified.

Betsy cried with happiness; Eric cried and said that this was the best day of his whole life; Emily cried because it was all so marvelous; and the best man cried because his own marriage was on the rocks and he envied people just starting out.

When all the relations went home and the best man had gone to make one more ineffectual stab at repairing his own marriage, the bride and groom set off with the maid of honor for Chinatown and had a feast. There would be no honeymoon, but a holiday in Ireland would certainly be in the cards before the end of the year.

Emily told them about some of the people they would meet. Eric and Betsy said they could hardly wait. It all sounded so intriguing. They wanted to go right out to Kennedy Airport and fly to Ireland at once.