Minding Frankie (9 page)

“You have enough problems to think about,” Emily said, her voice warm and sympathetic.

“Well, this social worker is a bit of a madam. You know, interested in everything, believing nothing, always trying to trip you up.”

“I suppose they have to be a bit like that on behalf of the child,” Emily murmured.

“Yes, but not like the secret police. You see, I sort of implied that Noel and I were more of an item than we are. You know, in terms of seeing each other and everything.”

“Sure.” Emily nodded approvingly. It made sense.

There was no point in Stella telling a social worker that she hardly knew the least thing about the father of the child she was about to have.

It wouldn’t look good from the start.

“I’ll help to fill you in on all that,” Emily said.

At that moment Noel came in, closely followed by Moira Tierney.

She was in her early thirties with dark hair swept back with a red ribbon. If not for her frown of concentration, she would have been
considered attractive. But Moira was too busy to consider looking attractive.

“You are Noel Lynch?” she said briskly and without much enthusiasm.

He began to shuffle and appear defensive.

Emily moved in quickly. “Give me your parcels, Noel. I know you want to say hello to Stella properly.” She nudged him towards the bed.

Stella held up her thin arms to give him an awkward combination of a hug and a peck on the cheek.

Moira watched suspiciously.

“You and Stella don’t share a home, Mr. Lynch?” Moira said.

“No, not at the moment,” he agreed apologetically.

“But there are active plans going ahead so that Noel can get a place of his own to raise Frankie,” Emily said.

“And you are …?” Moira looked at Emily inquiringly.

“Emily Lynch. Noel’s cousin.”

“Are you the only family he has?” Moira checked her notes.

“Lord, no! He has a mother and father, Josie and Charles …,” Emily began, making sure that Stella could hear the names as well.

“And they are …?” Moira had an irritating habit of asking a question the wrong way round, as if she were making some kind of disapproving statement.

“They are at home organizing a fund to erect a statue to St. Jarlath in their street.”

“St.
Jarlath
?” Moira was bewildered.

“I know! Aren’t they wonderful? Well, you’ll meet them yourself. They’ll be in tomorrow to see Stella.”

“They will?” Stella was startled.

“Of course they will.” Emily sounded more confident than she felt.

Josie would take a lot of convincing before she arrived to see the girl who was no better than she should be. But Emily was working on it and the important thing just now was to let the social worker see that there was strong family support.

Moira absorbed it all as she was meant to.

“And where do you intend to live, Mr. Lynch, if you
are
given custody of the child?”

“Well of course he will have custody of the child,” Stella snapped. “He’s the child’s father. We are all agreed on that!”

“There may be circumstances which might challenge this.” Moira was prim.

“What kind of circumstances?” Stella was angry now.

“A background of alcohol abuse, for one thing,” Moira said.

“Not from me, Noel,” Stella said apologetically.

“Naturally, we make inquiries,” Moira said.

“But that is all under control now,” Emily said.

“Well, that will be looked into,” Moira said in a clipped voice. “What kind of accommodation were you thinking of, Mr. Lynch?”

Emily spoke again. “Noel’s family have been discussing nothing else but accommodation. We are looking at this apartment in Chestnut Court. It’s a small block of flats not far away from where he lives now.”

“Would it not be preferable to start the child off living with a ready-made family in er … St. Jarlath’s Crescent?”

“Well, you see …,” Noel began.

“You see, Moira, you are very welcome to come and visit Noel’s home at any time, but you will realize that it’s entirely unsuited for a baby. The places in Chestnut Court are much more child-friendly. The one we are all interested in is on the ground floor. Would you like to see a picture of it here …”

Moira didn’t seem as interested as she might have been. She was looking at Noel and seemed to spot the surprise on his face.

“What do
you
think of this as a place to move to?” she asked him directly.

Stella and Emily waited anxiously.

“As Emily said, we have talked through so many ideas and this one seems to be the most suitable so far.”

Moira nodded as if in agreement, and if she heard the breath of relief from the two women, she gave no sign.

There were questions then about the rent that would be paid and the babysitting support that would be available, seeing that Noel would be at work all day.

And soon it was over.

Emily made one last statement to show how reliable her cousin Noel was.

“I don’t know whether you realize that Noel is very anxious to marry Stella. He has proposed to her, but Stella would prefer not to. This is the attitude of a committed person, someone who would be reliable and responsible.”

“As I said, Ms. Lynch, there are some formalities that have to be gone through. I will have to talk about it with my team and then the last word will be with the supervisor.”

“But the first and most influential word will be from
you
, Moira,” Emily said.

Moira gave one of her brisk little nods and was gone.

Stella waited till she was out of the ward before she started to celebrate. With a flick of her wrist she pulled the curtains and produced the cigarettes.

“Well done to the pair of you,” she said, looking from Noel to Emily and back. “We have Madam Moira on the run!”

“We still have a way to go,” Emily said, and they settled down to discuss further strategies.

And they continued to do this for the next few weeks. Every aspect of the effort to turn Noel into a father was discussed.

Josie and Charles were introduced to Stella and, after some awkward shuffling at the start, they found an astonishing amount of common ground. Both Noel’s parents and Stella herself seemed entirely convinced that shortly Stella would be going to a better place. There was no pretense that she might recover.

Josie talked wistfully of Stella going to meet Our Lord fairly soon and Charles said that if Stella were to meet St. Jarlath, she could pass on the news that the statue would indeed be erected but it might
take a little longer than they had once believed possible. They had helped by paying a deposit on the flat in Chestnut Court. St. Jarlath’s image might have to wait a little, but it would happen.

“Wouldn’t he be able to see that already?” Stella asked.

“Yes, I imagine he would,” Charles agreed. “But it would be no harm to give him a personal message.”

Noel felt ashamed that his parents took this whole idea of an afterlife so casually. They really and truly saw heaven as some kind of a big park where they would meet everyone.

Stella rolled her eyes a bit at the whole notion, but she didn’t seem put out by it either. She was game to take a message to any old saint just to keep the show on the road.

But they also made plans on a more practical level. Chestnut Court was only a seven-minute walk from St. Jarlath’s Crescent. Noel could wheel the baby around to his parents’ home before work each morning; Josie and Charles would look after Frankie until lunchtime. Then she would go for the afternoon either to Molly Carroll’s house or to this couple called Aidan and Signora, who looked after their grandchild; to Dr. Hat, who had retired recently and found time hanging heavy on his hands; or to Muttie and Lizzie Scarlet, who, quite apart from their own children, had raised twins who were no blood relations to them at all.

The three evenings a week when Noel would be at his evening classes would be covered as well. For a time Emily would go to the new apartment in Chestnut Court and do her paperwork. Noel would return after his lectures and she would cook him a meal. He had started getting lessons from the district nurse on what he would need in the new flat to welcome the baby and had been shown how to prepare a feed and the importance of sterilizing bottles. Declan Carroll’s wife, Fiona, had sent a message to say that she had already received a baby’s layette that would be enough for sextuplets. Stella and Noel
must
help her out and get the garments worn; their babies would arrive at around the same time. What could be more luck?

Noel was swept along in the whirl of activity of it all.

The thrift shop was up and running; he and his father had
painted it to Emily and Josie’s satisfaction and already people had begun to donate items to be sold. Some of these would be useful for Noel’s new flat, but Emily was adamant: a fair price must be paid for them. The money was for St. Jarlath, not to build a comfortable lifestyle for Noel.

He had little time alone with Stella. There were so many practicalities to be sorted out. Did Stella want the child to be brought up as a Catholic?

Stella shrugged. The child could abandon it once she was old enough. Possibly to please Josie and Charles, there should be a baptism and First Holy Communion and all, but nothing too “Holy Joe.”

Were there
any
relations on Stella’s side whom she might want to involve?

“None whatsoever.” She was clipped and firm.

“Or anyone at all from the various foster homes from the past?”

“No, Noel, don’t go there!”

“Right. It’s just that when you’re gone, I’ll have no one to ask.”

Her face softened. “I know. Sorry for snapping at you. I’ll write her a letter telling her a bit about myself and about you and how good you’ve been.”

“Where will you leave the letter?” Noel asked.

“With you, of course!”

“I mean, if you wanted to leave it in a bank or something …,” Noel offered.

“Do I look to you like someone who has a bank account, Noel? Please …”

“I wish you weren’t going to leave, Stella,” he said, covering her thin hand with his.

“Thanks, Noel. I don’t want to go either,” she said. And they sat there like that until Father Flynn came in for a visit. He took in the scene and the hand-holding, but made no comment.

“I was just passing,” he said foolishly.

“Well, I was on my way anyway, Father.” Noel stood up to leave.

“Maybe you could stay a minute, Noel. I wanted Stella to tell me what, if anything, she wanted for her funeral.”

The question didn’t faze Stella at all.

“Listen, Brian, ask Noel’s family what
they
want. I won’t be here. Let them have whatever is easiest.”

“A hymn or two?” Brian Flynn asked.

“Sure, why not. I’d like a happy clappy one. You know, like a gospel choir, if possible.”

“No problem,” Father Flynn said. “And burial or cremation or body to science?”

“Don’t think my body would tell anyone anything they didn’t know already.” Stella considered it. “I mean, if you smoke four packs a day, you get cancer of the lung. If you drink as much as I did, then you get cirrhosis of the liver. There isn’t a part of me sound enough for a transplant, but what the hell … it could be an awful warning.” Her eyes were very bright.

Brian Flynn swallowed.

“We don’t talk about this sort of thing much, Stella, but do you want a Requiem Mass?”

“That’s the one with all the bells and whistles, isn’t it?”

“It gives a lot of people comfort,” Father Flynn said diplomatically.

“Bring it on then, Brian,” she said good-humoredly.

Lisa Kelly had been very bright at school; she had been good at everything. Her English teacher encouraged her to do a degree in English literature and aim for a post in the university. Her sports teacher said that with her height—by the age of fourteen she was already nearly six feet tall—she was a natural and she could play tennis or hockey, or both, for Ireland. But when it came to it, Lisa decided to go for art. Specifically for graphic art.

She graduated from that, first in her year, and was instantly offered a position in one of the big design firms in Dublin. It was at that point that she should have left the family home.

Her younger sister, Katie, had gone three years previously, but Katie was very different. No child genius, only barely able to keep up with the class, Katie had taken a holiday job in a hairdresser’s and found her life’s calling. She had married Garry Finglas and together they had set up a smart salon that had gone from strength to strength. She loved to practice on Lisa’s long honey-colored hair, blow-drying it and then styling it into elegant chignons and pleats.

Their mother, Di, had been very scornful about it all. “Touching people’s dirty heads!” she had exclaimed in horror.

Their father, Jack Kelly, barely commented on Katie’s career, any more than he had on Lisa’s work.

Katie had begged Lisa to leave home. “It’s not like that out in the
real world, not awful silences like Mum and Dad have. Other people don’t shrug at each other the way
they
do, they
talk.
”