Quentins (11 page)

Sometimes Deirdre asked her, “Do you still love him?”

Always Ella answered, “I don't know.”

If Deirdre asked would she take him back suppose he did ask her? Ella would take the question very seriously. “I think not, and when I look at my father's face, I think surely I'd never be able to look at Don again. But then, I keep hoping there's some other explanation for the whole thing, which of course there isn't. So crazy as it sounds, I must have
some
feelings for him still.”

And Deirdre would nod and consider it too. Deirdre had insisted on only one thing, that she go into the school and face them immediately. So Ella went to see the school principal.

“I'll leave whenever you want me to,” she said.

“We don't want you to.”

“But where's the bit about us giving a good example to the little flock?”

“The little flock would buy and sell us all, Ella, you know it, I know it.”

“I can't stay, Mrs. Ennis, not after this scandal.”

“What did you do? You were taken in by a man. You won't be the first or the last to have that happen to you, let me tell you. You're a good teacher. Please don't go.”

“The parents?”

“The parents will gossip for a couple of weeks and the kids will make jokes, then it will be forgotten.”

“I don't know if I can face it.”

“What's to face? You have to look at people whatever job you do. And presumably you have to earn a living.”

“Oh, I do, Mrs. Ennis, I do.”

“Then earn it here. Go on just to the end of the school year anyway. See how you feel then.”

“I might want to get out of teaching entirely, you know, try something different.”

“If you do, then do it, but not in midyear. You owe us this, and you owe it to yourself not to run away, like he did.”

“You've been very understanding. Imagine an Irish convent school allowing a scarlet woman to stay on.”

“You're not
very
scarlet, Ella, just a bit pink-eyed at the moment. Get back into those classrooms. The one thing we can all say about teaching is that it's demanding enough to take your mind off other things.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Ennis.”

“Ella, he won't get away with it totally, you know. Even if he doesn't get a jail sentence. He'll get some sort of punishment.”

Ella shrugged. “Whatever.”

“He will. He can't swan around here anymore, go to golf clubs, yacht clubs, be recognized in restaurants.”

“They've all those things in Spain too.”

“Not the same at all. Anyway, none of my business. Hang in there for the rest of the year, will you, and then we'll talk again.”

“You're very kind, very understanding.”

“Well, we've all been there, Ella, and just between us, the late Mr. Ennis, as he is often respectfully called, is not late, he's just out of the frame. He had a different view of his future, which involved my savings account and a girl young enough to be his daughter, so of course I understand.”

For days afterward, Ella wondered whether she had imagined this conversation. It seemed highly unreal, as did everything else these days. It was as if she were watching all these conversations on a stage rather than taking part in them.

First Sandy phoned. She still worked with Nick in Firefly Films.

“I just rang to say that if you were looking for extra work, there's always a bit of night work going here.”

“Thanks, Sandy, that's very nice of you. Nick okay with this?”

“Yeah, but you know the way he is. He didn't want to ask you in case you thought he was patronizing you or patting you on the head or something.”

“I wouldn't think that.”

“Men are complicated.”

“Tell me about it, Sandy.”

“What'll I tell Nick?”

“Tell him I'd love it, anything at all.”

And Brenda Brennan offered her work when Ella had telephoned to thank her for all the kindness. “If you want any weekend work here in Quentins, just ask. I know it's only a few euros when what you need is thousands, but it might be a start.”

“Half the city wants to work in Quentins, you can't let me waltz in there ahead of the rest.”

“There's a bit of solidarity among women, Ella. You got a punch in the face and now you need a hand up as well. You'll find a lot of people will offer one.”

“Ella Brady?”

“Yes?” She always sounded jumpy and nervy on the telephone now. It was a bad habit and she must get out of it.

“This is Ria Lynch from down the road.”

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

There had been a time when this woman rather than Ella had been the subject of gossip all over Tara Road. Her husband had left her, and in a very short time Ria had taken up with Colm, who owned the successful suburban restaurant. The place had buzzed for a while, but now they were as settled and staid as any
regular married couple. What could she be calling about?

“I heard you were badly hit by Don Richardson, and I want to give you some advice. I thought I'd talk to you rather than your parents.”

“Yes.” Ella had been a little cold. Unasked-for advice wasn't too welcome these days.

“Don't let your father sell the house to raise money. Change it into four flats; they were flats already—you're halfway there. You'll get a fortune for renting them. Then take your garden shed, make it bigger and live in it for a couple of years.”

“Live in the shed?” Ella wondered if the woman was deranged.

“Look, it's enormous. All it needs is a couple of thousand spent on it, put in plumbing, and it can be made into two bedrooms, and a living room with a kitchenette.”

“We don't have a couple of thousand.”

“You would have in weeks if you let this beautiful house. I'll take you and show you Colm's old house if you like. It's a gold mine. Everyone wants to live on this road these days, and there's so much money about.”

“Why are you telling me this, Ria?” Ella had hardly ever talked properly to this woman before.

“Because we've all been through this—bankruptcy, a fellow not being what he said he was.”

Ella wondered if this was true. Had half the country been cheated and duped?

One night she dreamed that he had sent her a text message on her cell phone. Just two words: Sorry, Angel. It was such a real dream, Ella had to get up in the middle of the night and check her phone. There was nothing there but a message from Nick.

“I really need your help for a competition . . . Say yes.”

She phoned him next morning. He brought a sandwich up to the school and they had lunch in her car. His enthusiasm was as boyish as ever. There was going to be a film festival on a theme. Some aspect of Dublin life that would illustrate all the changes there had been in the city over the years.

“What kind of change do you mean? Architecture or something?”

“No, I don't think everyone will go for that,” Nick said.

“Well, what, then? The growth in Irish self-confidence?”

“Yes, but we can't just make a film saying everyone's becoming more confident. Lord, just look at those confident faces passing by . . . there has to be something that binds them together, some theme.”

“And if we found one, what do we do next?”

“Go to New York and sell it to this fellow there who has a foundation. The King Foundation, to help young people in the arts. If we made this film, Ella, and won a prize at the festival, we'd be made. Made, I tell you. Something that gives a picture of Dublin changing . . . Can you think of anything that sort of sums it all up?”

“Sorry to ask, Nick, but would there be money in it? You know we're cleaned out.”

“I sort of heard,” he said, looking away.

“So is there?”

“Yes, there would be if we got the right idea.”

“And when would it need to be done?”

“We need to be ready to pitch in three months' time.”

“That would work out all right. I could work during the day once we get school holidays from here two weeks from tomorrow.”

“Do you have any ideas at all?” he asked.

She was silent for a moment. “Quentins,” she said eventually.

“What do you mean?”

“Do a documentary about the restaurant, the changes in people's aspirations, their hopes and dreams since it was founded about forty years ago.”

“It's never been there that long.”

“Well, it was a totally different kind of café in the sixties and early seventies, until Brenda and Patrick took it over. It was really only watery soup and beans and toast before then, you know.”

“I didn't know that.”

“Well, that's what people wanted then. And look how different it all is nowadays. You could tell the stories of the kind of people who come there . . . how it's all changed since the days when it was full of people with suitcases tied with string come in for tea and a couple of fried eggs before they took the emigrant ship.”

“It was never like that, surely?”

“It was, Nick. They have pictures of it all up in their bedroom, a whole history waiting to be told.”

He didn't ask how she had been in the Brennans' bedroom. Nick was very restful sometimes. But he didn't buy the idea. “It would just be a plug for them. It would be like a commercial for the restaurant.”

“They don't need it. Aren't they full all the time? No, it wouldn't be done like that . . . it could be a series of interviews with people remembering different times . . . you know . . . oh, all kinds of things, the way First Communions have changed, stag party dinners, corporate entertaining. It sure tells the story of a changing economy better than anything I know.”

He was interested now. “Other restaurants are going to be full of grizzles and complaints about why we didn't pick them.”

“Deal with that when it happens, Nick.”

He looked at her admiringly. “You're very bright, Ella,” he said.

“Where did it get me?” she asked.

“You asked about money,” he said, changing the subject. “Well, this is what I suggest. If you help me develop this and sell it to Derry King, I'll pay you a proper wage for five weeks. Suppose I said eight hundred euros a week.”

“That's four thousand euros. Fantastic,” she said, delighted.

“What do you need it for so badly?”

“To do up the garden shed for my mother and father, because thanks to my lover, they are going to have to leave their own house.”

He laughed first and then stopped. “You're bloody serious,” Nick said, shocked.

“Yes, I am.”

“I can give it to you now, tomorrow.”

“No you can't, Nick.”

“I can. Let's say I can get my hands on it easier than you can.”

“You're not to go into debt.”

“No, but we've got to get the Bradys a henhouse or whatever to live in.” He grinned at her.

Wouldn't it have been much easier if she had loved Nick, Ella thought.

They made an appointment with the Brennans the next day. Nick and Sandy and Ella sat in the kitchen of Quentins at five o'clock and told them about the project. Brenda and Patrick were doubtful at first. They listed their reservations. It would be too much upheaval, it would get in the way of their main business, which was to provide food. They didn't need the publicity. Perhaps some of the customers might not like to be interviewed.

Slowly they were worn down. Soon they began to think of the positive side of it. In a way, it would be some kind of permanent proof of what they had done.
It would be exciting to be considered part of the history of Ireland. Customers who didn't want to be interviewed need not be approached. They had huge amounts of memorabilia. Both of them were magpies who collected things and refused to throw them away. And then the most compelling reason of all . . . Quentin would surely love it.

“Quentin?” Ella said. “You mean there really
is
a living person called Quentin?”

“Oh yes, indeed there is,” said Patrick Brennan, the chef.

“Yes, he would,” Brenda said slowly. “It could be a sort of monument to him.”

“Could you tell us some of the stories about the place?” Ella asked, and as she turned on the tape recorder she realized that for the past hour and a half she had not thought about Don Richardson once. The pain that was like something sticking into her ribs was not nearly so sharp. Still there, of course, but not like it had been earlier.

Q
uentin Barry had always wished that he had been called Sean or Brian. It was hard to be called Quentin at a Christian Brothers school in the 1970s. But that was the name they had wanted, his beautiful mother Sara Barry had wanted, she who had always lived in a dream world far more elegant than the one she really lived in.

And it was what his hardworking father, Derek, wanted too. Derek, who was a partner in Bob O'Neil's Accountancy Firm. He had always seen the day when his son's name would be on the notepaper too. That had been very important to him. Bob O'Neil had no son to succeed him. If people saw the name Quentin Barry on the office paper as well as Derek's, they would know who was important.

Since his earliest days, Quentin knew that he was going to work in his father's firm. It was never questioned. He even knew which room he would work in. It was across the corridor from his father's. At present, it was a storeroom and his father was keeping it that way until it was time for Quentin to take over.

The other lads at the Brothers didn't know what jobs, if any, they would get when they left school. A few of them might go to college. Some might go to England or America. There would, of course, be a couple of vocations to the priesthood or the Brothers.

Quentin used to pretend that he, too, had a choice in it all. He said that he might be a pilot or a car mechanic. These were things that sounded normal and masculine. Not like his name, not precious, like his lifestyle as an only child with a mother who looked like a film star and talked very fancy when she drove by school to collect her son in a cream-colored car.

Sometimes Quentin felt able to tell his mother about his doubts about his future career. “You know, Mother. I might not be a good accountant like Dad is,” he would begin nervously.

“Quentin, my sweet one, you are twelve years old!” she would say. “Don't get involved in the awful world of business until you have to.”

He loved to help in the home, choosing fabrics for the sitting room, making table decorations for dinner parties.

His father frowned on this kind of activity. “Don't have the lad doing girly things like that,” he would say.

“The lad, as you call him, likes to help, which is a blessing, since all you do is sit down, put your elbows on the table, and eat and drink what's put in front of you.”

Quentin wondered did other people's parents bicker as much as his did. Probably. It wasn't something they talked much about at school. He knew one thing, which was that the other boys' mothers did not talk to them like his mother did.

Sara Barry always called him her sweet one, and the light of her life. Or something else very fancy. Other boys' mothers called them great galumphing clods and useless good-for-nothings. It was very different. And although his mother loved him to bits, she was always saying it, she never took him seriously about not wanting to be an accountant. “But, my sweet boy, you are only twelve.”

Or thirteen or fourteen. By the time he was sixteen, he knew he had to say something.

“I do not think I'm cut out for accountancy, Dad.”

“No one's cut out for it, boy. We have to work it.”

“I won't be any good at it, truly.”

“Of course you will, when you're involved. Just concentrate getting your exams like a good lad.”

“I'm way behind at maths, and honestly, I'm not going to get any good exam results in anything. Isn't it better to be prepared for that now rather than it coming as an awful shock?”

“Do you study, do your homework?” His father's frown was mighty.

“Well, yes, I do, but . . .”

“There you are. It's just nerves. You're too like your mother, highly strung, not a good thing for a man to be.”

Quentin failed his exams quite spectacularly.

The atmosphere at home was very hostile. It made it worse that his parents blamed each other much more than they blamed him.

“You upset him with all that pressure that he has to be a dull, boring accountant and fill your shoes,” Sara Barry hissed.

“You fill him up with nonsense, mollycoddling him and taking him shopping with you like a poodle,” Derek Barry countered.

“You don't care about Quentin, all you care about is having two Barrys in that plodding office to annoy Bob O'Neil,” Sara snapped.

“And what do you care about, Sara? You only care that the dull, plodding office, as you call it, makes enough money for you to buy ever more clothes in Hayward's.”

Quentin hated hearing them shout over him. He agreed to repeat the year and have extra tutoring. Derek Barry was glad that he had never mentioned any actual timing to Bob O'Neil. One of the Brothers up at the school was a gentle man with a faraway look. Brother Rooney was always to be found in the school
gardens, digging here, planting there. He used to teach a long time ago, but he said he wasn't good at it, he would drift away and tell the boys stories.

“That would have been nice,” Quentin said.

“It wasn't really, Quentin, it was no use to them. I was meant to be putting facts into their heads, getting them exams. So I sort of drifted out to the garden, which was where I wanted to be in the first place, and I'm as happy as Larry now.”

“Aren't you lucky, Brother Rooney? I don't want to be an accountant at all!”

“Then don't be, Quentin, be what you want.”

“I wish I could.”

“What do you like? What are you good at?”

“Nothing much. I like food, I love beautiful things, and I like helping people enjoy themselves.”

“You could work in a restaurant.”

“With
my
parents, Brother Rooney? Can you see it?”

“Well, it's good, honest work, and they'd get used to it in time. They'd have to.”

“And what about the bit where God says honor thy father and thy mother.” Quentin smiled at the older Brother.

“It says only honor them, it doesn't say lie down like a doormat and go along with any of their cracked schemes.” That old man with the gardener's hands and the faded blue eyes looked as if he was on very confident ground.

“Is that what you did, Brother Rooney?”

“I did it twice, boy, first to get into the order. My parents wanted me to work on the buildings in London and bring in big money, but I wanted peace, not more noise and bustle. They were very put out, but I never raised my voice to them, and it worked. Eventually. And then when I was in here I had to fight again to get out of the classroom and into the garden. I explained over and over that
I couldn't hold the children's attention, couldn't make them understand things, but I'd love to make the garden bloom, that I could serve God best that way, and that worked. Eventually.”

“I wonder how long is eventually.” Quentin sounded wistful.

“You'd be wise to start at once, Quentin,” said Brother Rooney, picking up his hoe and getting at some of the hard-to-reach weeds at the back of the flower bed.

“Eventually is now, Father, Mother,” Quentin said that evening at supper.

“What's the boy talking about?” His father rattled the paper.

“Derek, have the courtesy at least to listen to your son.”

“Not when he's talking rubbish. What does that mean, Quentin? Is it something you got from one of your loutish friends up in the place we thought was going to make a man of you and give you an education? Nicely fooled we were too.” Derek Barry snorted.

“No, Father, I don't
have
many friends, as you may notice. I'm not interested in football or drinking or going to the disco, so I'm mainly on my own. I was talking to Brother Rooney, who does the gardens up in the school.”

“Well, you might have tried talking to one of the more educated Brothers, one who would tell us what on earth we are to do with you, my darling.” This time it was Quentin's mother's turn to look sad and impatient with him.

“You see, I'll never be an accountant. I'll never get the qualifications to get me taken on to study as one. We will all understand and accept that eventually. So why don't we accept it now.”

“And you'll do what with your life, exactly?” his father asked.

“I'll get a job, Father, go out and get a job like everyone else.”

“And what about the place in my office I was keeping for you?” His father had lines of disappointment almost etched into his face.

“Father, I'm sorry, but it was only a dream, your dream. We'll all understand that eventually. Can we not understand it now?”

“Oh, stop repeating that gardener's mumbo jumbo.”

“I can't bear telling Hannah Mitchell. She's so proud of her son going to do law like his father.” Sara Barry's pretty face pouted. Ladies' lunches didn't look so good from this viewpoint.

“What kind of job?” Derek Barry said.

And Quentin knew that Brother Rooney had advised him well. Eventually was now.

He worked first in a seaside café south of Dublin, then an Italian restaurant in the city. Then he got a kitchen and bar job in one of the big hotels. This meant antisocial hours, so he moved out of his parents' home and got a bed-sitter. His father didn't seem to notice or care. And his mother was vague and confused about it all.

And eventually he went for an interview in Hayward's store, where they needed someone in their restaurant. He was interviewed by Harold Hayward, one of the many cousins who worked in the family firm. This was much smarter than the other places he had worked. More like home, in fact, where he had loved helping his mother with her dinner parties.

And this is exactly what Quentin Barry did, imitate his own mother's stylish presentation. Soon there were heavy linen napkins, good bone china, and the best of silverware all on display.

He suggested special afternoon teas, with warm scones dripping in butter, served with little bowls of clotted cream and berries to spread on top . . .

He presided over it all as if he loved being there and as if it were his own little kingdom which he had created.

His mother was not best pleased. Quite a lot of the ladies she lunched with went to Hayward's. None of
their
sons worked at tables.

“You could tell them I'm serving my time until I open my own place,” Quentin suggested.

“I could, I suppose,” his mother said doubtfully.

He was shocked. He had been making a joke, and she took it seriously. What was so awful about doing a job he liked? Good, honest work. Sitting around over coffee afterward, discussing how to make the place even better. His beautiful mother did not call him the light of her life or sweetness these days. Possibly he had given all that up when he had passed on being an accountant.

From time to time, Quentin went to see Brother Rooney back at his old school. He brought the man a packet of cigarettes and they would sit on a carved wooden seat or in the greenhouse. The old man with the pale, watery blue eyes would point out proudly some of the changes there had been since Quentin's last visit. The dramatic difference it had made cutting that hedge right back. There were magical things under it that no one had ever seen and now they were flowering away once they had been given the light.

“Did you miss girls when you came here?” Quentin asked him one day.

“Don't they have girls now?” The school had become coeducational in the last couple of years. It had been a big change.

“No, I meant girlfriends. Did you miss that side of things?”

“No, not at all,” Brother Rooney said. “Funny, but it never bothered me at all. I never had a girlfriend, couldn't take to it.”

“Would you have preferred fellows, do you think?” Quentin knew the old man wouldn't be offended.

“Divil a bit of it neither one nor the other, a kind of a eunuch, I suppose. But you know, Quentin, that's not as big a loss as people might think.”

“I suppose it's a positive benefit if you're in a religious order and taken a vow of chastity.” Quentin smiled at him.

“No, I didn't mean that at all. I meant like if you're not taken up by desire for people then you can see beauty more around you. I see all kinds of colors and textures in flowers and trees that I don't think other fellows see at all.” He seemed pleased with himself over the way attributes had been handed out. Some got this, some got that.

“You're one of the happiest people I know, Brother Rooney.”

“And if you won't be offended and take it the wrong way, I think you're quite like me, Quentin. You see beauty in things too, and you have great enthusiasms. It does my heart good to hear you talking about that restaurant you run.”

“Oh, I don't run it, Brother. I only work there.”

“Well, you sound as if you did, and that's a great thing.”

“Will you come in and see me there one day?”

“I'd feel out of place in a fancy restaurant like that. They'd be looking at my nails and everything.”