Heart and Soul (33 page)

Dimples showered everyone around with his almighty shakes. And then he sneezed eight sneezes in rapid succession.

Declan hadn't even got his feet wet.

“I did nothing,” he confessed. “I can't swim.”

She had struggled to help Dimples, she was indifferent to the fact that she was soaked to the skin, she was protecting him. Declan had never loved her more, and never felt more useless.

“You saved Dimples,” he said.

“Well, I thought up this cracked idea—I couldn't let Dimples perish, could I?” She was shivering, and then totally unselfconsciously she peeled off her jeans, her socks, her pink frilly pants and wrapped herself up in the rug they had intended to sit on. She tied it around her waist with the belt of her jeans, sat down on the pebble beach and drained the half bottle of wine that had been part of the picnic. “I think I can say I deserved that,” she said cheerfully.

“Fiona?”

“Yes?”

“Fiona… It seems an odd kind of thing to say just now …but…”

“But I shouldn't strip off like that on the beach. I won't again, I just wanted to get out of the wet clothes.”

“No. That's not what I was going to say. Not at all.”

“So what was it?” She looked at him, her eyes squinting in the weak sunshine, already warm and dry from the rug that wrapped her up.

“I was going to ask you would you marry me?” he said in a rush.

“Marry
you, Declan?” She was utterly astonished.

“Well…yes. There's nothing in the world that I want more.” He was almost afraid to meet her eye in case he saw pity or ridicule or a wish for a kind way to let him down gently.

She said nothing.

“I'd be very good to you and look after you. I love you, Fiona, with all my heart.”

“Married?” she said. “You mean married, married like grownups?”

“Please say yes. Please.” Declan was looking at Dimples's tail thumping on the beach. He was still afraid to look Fiona in the eye.

“Declan,” she said in a low voice.

He looked up. She was smiling.

“I thought you'd never ask me. I'd
love
to marry you. I'd love it with all my heart.”

And he leaped up and dragged her to her feet and kissed her for so long that Dimples was concerned and began to circle them with
anxious barks. And if anyone had been watching the little tableau they would have seen the rug around the girl slip down and the two young people grab it as if their lives depended on it.

Back in the clinic, they told Clara she looked wonderful. Tanned and rested.

“And like a demon for work,” she threatened. “Come on, now, tell me what's happened.”

They told her stories.

There was of course only one real item of news: Declan and Fiona were going to get married.

They had tried to say nothing, but everyone knew that something was afoot. Eventually Barbara had more or less beaten it out of them. Had they made plans or had they not? When they shuffled and said sort of, the place went mad.

In vain did Declan and Fiona try to protest that no ring had been bought, no date had been fixed. It was the first homegrown romance and everyone was milking it for all they could. Ania had rushed out and bought sparkling wine, Lar had offered a few choice facts about weddings for people to note down and remember. There was a card, too, which Clara must sign: they had been waiting for her to come back. Hilary had been wistful, remembering when she was young and in love. Bobby Walsh had said it was enchanting news and that Rosemary would be delighted, which nobody really believed. Johnny managed
not
to say that no good would come from it all, and Lavender offered to make the wedding cake and said they should tell her in good time when they set a date.

Then Bobby Walsh had taken a turn and been back in intensive care, and everyone there said that he was brilliant because he knew all his medications. Blinded them with information. He was on the mend again and coming in every week.

“That's thanks to Declan,” Clara said.

Kitty Reilly had discovered a new saint called St. Joseph of Cupertino, who apparently was the last word on curing people. She
had leaflets about him, which she distributed to everyone in the waiting room. Fiona had said as a joke that poor Padre Pio must be up in heaven feeling very left out now that Mrs. Reilly had moved on, so Kitty had got a whole new stock of Padre Pio medals for fear of causing offense.

Lar had taken to asking the people in the waiting room to learn one new fact per visit, which was irritating them. One of Judy Murphy's Jack Russell terriers had broken his paw when a gate slammed on it, and poor Judy was on her way carrying him to the vet when she met Declan, who put the paw in a splint. And the vet said afterward that he never saw a better job and that if Declan tired of dull, boring, bad-tempered human people, there was always a job for him with dumb animals and man's best friends.

Lavender had got a famous celebrity chef to come and give a cooking demonstration on one of their Evenings of Getting to Know the Heart. Johnny had got a once-weekly slot on television doing cardiovascular exercises. Tim had fallen in love with Lidia, and she was bringing him back to Poland to meet her family.

“And what about you, little Ania?”

“Nothing new with me. I still work hard and I still say thank you to Our Lord every night for making me meet you and change my life so much.”

“And are you still saving for your mother's house?”

“You wouldn't believe how much I have saved, Clara. I work in Declan's mother's launderette, and I do some cleaning in that nursing home where Hilary was thinking of taking her mother. They are so nice there …Mrs. Cotter is a little like you, I think.”

“That's good,” Clara said. “And does Carl Walsh still give you English lessons?”

Ania looked down at the ground. “Yes, yes,” she said. “But there is no hope in it. No hope, I fear.”

“Hey, but your English
is great
!
“
Clara said.

“Oh, yes, I am learning the English. That's fine, that part of it,” Ania said.

And then Clara realized she meant there was no hope for her
with the handsome Carl Walsh. Clara would not like to have taken on the formidable Mrs. Walsh herself. Bobby would have been a pussycat, but Mrs. Walsh—why you'd need nerves of steel for her.

“On a level playing field you might have had plenty of hope.”

“Please?”

“It's an expression. It means …”

“I know what it means—it means if all things were equal,” Ania said.

“That's exactly what it means. But because of his mother they are probably not.”

“It's pleasing, anyway, that you think there might have been hope,” Ania said.

Clara had never been one to talk out her problems with girlfriends, analyzing them to the bone. She
did
like a good gossip with Dervla, but apart from that she kept her difficulties to herself. She had discussed with no one the fact that she was going to marry Alan Casey. Perhaps she should have. And why was she speaking of Alan and Peter in the same breath? Even to herself? They were so utterly different…

Dervla was a good confidante and very astute.

“Did he ask you to marry him?” she asked. They were having a lunchtime coffee at Dervla's golf club. It was one of the few places they would be sure of not being disturbed.

“Yes, on the last night,” Clara admitted.

“Am I going to have to beat it out of you? Are you going to tell me what you said?”

“What do
you
think of him, Dervla?”

“He hasn't asked
me
to marry him, and somehow I don't think Philip would like it if he did.”

“Seriously, though, what
doyo
u think?”

“I think he's so suitable it's as if we invented him.”

“I don't have this breathless feeling.”

“Well, God, Clara, look at the age of you! If you were going
round with teenage palpitations then it really would be something to worry about.”

“So you think I should?”

“Are you mad? Advise you? Advise
you,
Clara? But, all right, I think if you settle for Peter, you will have a pleasant, happy, good-tempered companion who loves you. What's wrong with that?”

“The words ‘settle for’; I think that's the flaw,” Clara said.

“Lord, the devil wouldn't please you, Clara Casey.”

“Did you settle for Philip?”

“You know I did. I couldn't have the hopeless guy I fancied. He needed to marry money and so he did. And later I met Philip and I bless every day since then.”

“But no
zing zing?”
Clara probed.

“I don't know what
zing zing
is!” Dervla laughed.

“You
do
know what it is,” Clara insisted.

“Well, I know what it
was,
certainly, but I think it runs out after the age of twenty-five.”

“So after that we just ‘settle for’ people?”

“It's very comfortable, and a lot less lonely and it's less likely to end in tears,” Dervla said.

“You may well be right,” said Clara, and they didn't talk about it again.

That afternoon she found herself talking to Nora Dunne, who had done so much to help her husband regain his health and strength.

“Dr. Casey, I have come here to thank you for being so helpful,” she said now. “I should have trusted you from the beginning. Aidan and I have a whole new life. I also want to apologize for wasting your time with my worries and complaints.”

“No, no, please. You were in shock.” Clara was soothing.

“It's just that he is the love of my life. I think of him from the dawn every day until I go to sleep that night. I wonder what
he
thinks of this and of that, I store things up to tell him. I think I went a little mad when I heard the words ‘heart disease.’”

“It's very controllable nowadays. We don't pretend that it has gone away vanished completely but with regular monitoring, great things can be done.”

“I know that now, Dr. Casey, but I'm afraid the possibility of a life without Aidan blew everything out of my mind. You see, I met him so late in my life, the only thing that made sense was if I were to have him for a good many years now.”

“I know, I know.”

“I believe you do know. These people here at the clinic told me that you too had a new love recently in your life and that you had gone to Italy with him. Don't be cross—you see, I was so anxious to apologize to you personally. I had them driven mad. They told me you were on vacation …”

“There's no need for any apology, Mrs. Dunne. I am surprised, though, that they told you I was holidaying with a man friend. It's quite true, as it happens, but they usually never say anything. About my private life.”

“Oh, that's my fault entirely. Please don't blame them. I kept pestering them. I think I wore them down.”

Clara looked at her. Nora Dunne was like a woman in the grip of some great passion. Eventually Nora spoke again.

“I was so glad when I realized that you too had a great love in your life, for then you would know the terror of loss, the need to be with someone that makes you almost insane. If anything happened to Aidan, I would not want to live. I think my own heart would stop beating in sympathy. I couldn't bear a day or a night without him now and without seeing his dear face. And if you, Doctor, were in La Bella Italia with a man you love, then you would find it in your heart to forgive me.”

Clara looked at her—but she didn't see the woman in front of her. Instead she looked through her. She saw a life
of settling for
Peter, a life of bargains and special offers and cut-price goods, a life with companionship and no loneliness and no risks—and no passion anymore.

“You have done me a great favor by coming here today. I had
something to do which I was putting off, but now it's clear, and it will be done this evening,” she said.

Nora Dunne looked after her, confused, as she left the building and got into her car.

Peter answered the buzzer when she rang the doorbell of his flat. He was delighted to see her.

She went up the stairs with a heavy heart.

“Will I open some wine to celebrate?”

“No—unless you want to celebrate being free of me,” she said gently.

For a moment he was too shocked to respond. Then he sprang to his feet. “But
why,
Clara,
why?
We get on so well—Amy loves you, I love your girls.”

“Peter—do you know what I mean by
zing zing?”
she asked.

“No. No, I don't know. What is it?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“I could learn,” he said hopefully. He was so nice. She was completely mad. Like she had been mad to marry Alan.

But it
did
exist—mad, passionate love. She had seen it in her clinic not an hour ago. It was there somewhere. There would be no settling for anything. There would also be no rethink. Peter said they should wait before making a decision, but Clara's mind was made up.

“Can we be friends and occasional lovers?” he asked.

“No, that won't work,” Clara said. “Sit here and think of all the good things there are about this, Peter. There are many. And I'm glad we went into it rather than just fencing around; we always regret what we don't do, rather than what we
do. …
”

“Maybe you'll regret not marrying me, then?” he said.

“You will marry someone, Peter, and you'll be a great husband.” She hugged him as you might a brother as she left the cheerless apartment.

She was down the stairs and out in the busy precinct before he
could say any more. In the jeweler's on the corner they had a lot of rings discounted. She knew without having to ask that he must have been in there already and maybe even chosen one. But she put her shoulders back and walked on with more purpose than she had for a long time.