Authors: Maeve Binchy
“Much, thank you. I'm sorry for being like a bear yesterday.”
“No, you were like a cabaret. Was the meal bearable?”
“It was great. Alan rang up in the middle of it to say his bimbo has thrown him out and is giving away their baby. And, as it happens, Linda made a huge effort to be normal and almost succeeded. I enjoyed it.”
“Well, now!” Hilary was surprised.
“So much so that I think all that's wrong with her is she hasn't met the right man yet.”
“ Clara! You
and I are the old guard. We've spent years saying that we mustn't be measured by the man that we happen to have caught. What's happening to the sisterhood if you weaken?” Hilary was outraged.
“I'm not weakening for the sisterhood, only for Linda. Let's have dinner in the Italian place tonight and we'll plot the whole thing.”
“Tonight?”
“Go on, it's not as if either of us has anything else to do,” Clara said.
“You really have a way of making a girl feel special,” said Hilary. Then they got down to work.
Alan rang during the day and Ania took the call.
“Hold on, Mr. Casey, and I'll see if she's free. She
was
in a consultation
.” Clara shook her head.
“No,
I'm sorry, it's going to go on for some time. Shall I tell her that you called?”
“Don't bother. She doesn't care. If she had cared about anything she would have called
me.
Good-bye,” he said.
Ania repeated it slowly to Clara.
“Sorry, Ania, to involve you in such childish behavior from people who should be well past that.”
“Oh, Clara, if you knew how important I feel here. To be able to be a part of everyone's lives. It gives me great…wait…wait… I know the words …self-esteem.”
“Your English has come on so well. They wouldn't know you back home!”
“Yes. I met somebody from home. He could not believe it. He knew nothing. It was very satisfying.”
“Was he a boyfriend?” Clara asked.
“One time, yes, I think, or maybe he never was a boyfriend. Maybe it was all in my own mind. But now it's over. You know when something is really over, don't you?” She looked inquiringly at Clara.
“Yes, indeed you do. The trick is not to feel sorry for the person.”
“No. In my case this would never happen,” Ania said very seriously.
Clara hoped she was equally certain. She had been feeling something dangerously like sympathy for Alan since last night. She wondered where he had slept. And what he had done that Cinta had discovered.
“So, let's approach this like a problem in the clinic. Something that has to be solved before Frank gets wind of it.” Clara opened the discussion at the Italian restaurant.
“Nick is a bit of a dreamer, very easygoing—
too
easygoing. You'd need to light a fire under him.” Hilary put her cards on the table. “He has no get-up-and-go. He plays in this club. He wouldn't go to university, said it was too expensive for me, and so he taught kids the
piano and the guitar and then has played forever in this dead-end club.”
“Is it dead-end or is it just somewhere you and I wouldn't go to in a million years?” Clara asked.
“I think it's dead-end. They're always worried that they won't be able to keep up the lease. There are no crowds. No breakthroughs, or whatever people have in the movies, yet he turns up there night after night. He's very vague when I ask him how many people were there. He says there were plenty and they liked the music. He gets what they call a percentage of the door, which means, I think, a fifth of what they take in when people pay five euros to come in. But it's never very much. He makes up the rest by teaching.”
“And now to be truthful about Linda. Even though she was terrific last night, she is a very self-centered little madam. She thinks a pair of shoes that costs a week's wage would be good value. Good value! Where is she coming from? She thinks the world owes her something. Maybe we shouldn't unload her on your boy!”
“He's been well able to let other girls disappear from his life. We needn't worry about him being overwhelmed.”
“But how could they meet?” Clara puzzled.
“If we introduce them, it's over before it begins,” Hilary agreed.
“So
how
can they get together?” Clara wondered. “Suppose Linda were to get free tickets for Nick's club?”
“No, she wouldn't go. She'd smell a rat. Or if she did go, she wouldn't necessarily meet him,” Hilary objected.
Clara was not going to give up. “What can we do, then?”
“Could we get Nick a voucher for the record store where Linda works?” Hilary asked.
“Wouldn't work. He could go to the wrong assistant or it might be a day she wasn't on. You'd actually need a degree in some kind of higher mathematics to work out her shifts,” Clara said, still mystified by her daughter.
“There has to be a casual way. Could we ask them to come to the clinic, do you think?” Hilary said.
“And then they'd see the two of us old crones cackling with laughter and they would both leave in disgust,” Clara said.
“But suppose they
didn't
see us? Suppose they came and we weren't there and they had to talk to each other,” Hilary persisted.
“Ah, come on, Hilary. How could we get them to the clinic and not be there? Think of a way and if you can, then I'll buy it.”
“What if we were to invite them to the reception …” Hilary began.
“No. They'd regard it as a chore.” Clara was definite.
“But suppose they were the only kindred spirits there. They might fall on each other.”
“We can't introduce them,” Clara said.
“I know, of course, it can't be you and me. But suppose Ania did it?”
“She wouldn't carry it off,” Clara said.
“If there was only something that could get us out of the scene there,” Hilary said.
“I know. We'll get drunk,” Clara said, her eyes shining.
“Now?” Hilary was alarmed.
“No, you clown. At the reception.”
“Excuse me, did you say that you and I should get drunk at this reception, which has been breaking our hearts for weeks?
Drunk?
Is that what you said?”
“Not really drunk. Not
drunk
drunk. Just pretending.”
Hilary emptied her glass of wine. “That's a good idea, you think, to pretend to be drunk at this, our big showpiece night? Drunk in front of people like Frank Ennis, like the whole hospital board. In front of whoever the minister of health sends. In front of the cardiologists. In front of the media. Clara, are you insane?”
“No one will see,” Clara said cheerfully. “Everyone else will think we are sober. Only Nick and Linda will think we're drunk.”
Hilary attracted the waiter's attention.
“Can we have another bottle of Pinot Grigio? Things have taken a turn for the worse here.”
Linda was pleased with the way the dinner party had gone. Clara had been very pleasant. She had produced a bottle of Cointreau and
four little glasses. She had coped well with Alan on the phone. She had told them funny stories.
If only she could be like that all the time, it might be bearable to live at home. Odd that she had been so interested in the record store and how they had asked Linda to be in charge of the jazz section. She had been really surprised by that and wanted to know more. And the dreaded Gerry had been helpful and did the washing-up, which was useful when Mam, well, Clara as she now was, wanted to tell them their dad loved them. Maybe he did in his own mad dadlike way.
“Nick, you know this big reception we're going to be having at the clinic?” Hilary asked.
“Of course I do, Mam. Have you talked of anything else?”
“It's important. Sorry to go on about it.”
“No, that's fine. I just wonder why this Clara person doesn't take more interest in it. It's meant to be her show, isn't it?”
“Oh, she does work at it, in her own way,” Hilary said.
“Do you
like
her? As a person?”
“I don't know her very well. She's very efficient, certainly,” Hilary said, stifling her sense of disloyalty.
“Yeah, like Attila the Hun.” Nick grinned.
“I suppose.”
“So what were you going to tell me about the reception?” Nick asked.
“Oh, it was nothing really.”
“Mam! What was it?”
“I just wanted to tell you the date and I wanted a small favor.”
“Say it.” He was such a good-tempered boy. She hated all this subterfuge.
“Well, on the night I'll have to socialize with people and have a glass of wine with this one and that one. I shouldn't take the car and, Nick, I was wondering if you could come and pick me up at about nine o'clock?”
“Sure I will,” he said agreeably.
“It's just that would make me feel much better,” Hilary said.
“I'll be there, but where's the problem? Couldn't you just have called a taxi or something?”
“I
could
have, but it makes me look a bit lonely and sad. I'd love my nice son to come and pick me up.”
“I'll be there, Mam.”
“I'm not interfering? Upsetting a date or anything?”
“You know me, Mam. It'll have to be a very speedy girl to catch me.” He laughed.
“I mean it. We all hope to meet someone we like. I don't want to stand in your way.”
“You don't, Mam. You never did. Maybe I'm not the kind of guy anyone would fancy long term.”
“Oh, well, we'll see,” Hilary said.
“Adi, should we do something about Clara's reception?” Linda asked.
“What can we do?” Adi wondered.
“Well, we could show a bit of solidarity. It's hugely important to her, as I know to my cost.”
“She's forgiven you about the cake sale.”
“I know. I want to do something. Could you and I offer to be waitresses or something? Save her money?”
“We could ask her, I suppose,” Adi said.
They offered, but Clara said no. She thanked them but said she would be too edgy and nervous that night. They wouldn't see her at her best.
“But we never see you at your best,” Linda said, a little too honestly. “I mean, we see you ranting and raging about nothing here and we survive it.” Something about her mother's face made her make a hasty addition. “I mean, of course you see
us
in bad situations too. Like Adi being soppy and soft in the head and me being …well, I suppose a bit confused.”
It didn't calm the troubled waters quite as Linda had hoped. But Clara hadn't taken offense about it, which was a relief. In fact she seemed touched and surprised at Linda's self-knowledge.
“You're both very good to offer to help and if there
is
anything nearer the time I'll certainly call on you,” she said. “But I have lots of people lined up to help.” She had to remember not to say that without Hilary the whole project would have died long ago. It was hugely important that Linda never knew how much of a friend Hilary would always be.
On the day of the reception they were all at high doh in the clinic. They had set up tables for wine and soft drinks and coffee at one end of Lavender's room and another where food would be displayed at the other end. They lined the wall with chairs for those who needed to sit down. The doors were opened into the other parts of the clinic, with Johnny's equipment pushed well back but his exercise charts prominently displayed on the walls. The treatment cubicles had been changed into a highly acceptable cloakroom with rails for people's coats, and two girls from a nearby school would hang up each person's coat and give them a colored ticket.
There had been huge competition to do this job as it was rumored that two pop stars, a well-known actor and several television personalities were going to be among the guests.
The patients had been invited too, and all the members of the board.
“What do we have to do?” Mrs. Reilly asked suspiciously. Everyone knew what Mrs. Reilly
would
do. She would tell them that her improved heart condition was entirely due to the personal intervention of some saint and hand out leaflets about the curative powers of said saint. The clinic would not feature in her praise. But they couldn't leave her out. Mercifully, she decided that she had other fish to fry that night.
“Our Holy Mother must have explained to Our Lord that Mrs. Reilly would be better not at the clinic,” Ania said cheerfully. Clara and Hilary looked at each other. They had often said that the marvelous
, pious Polish people who had come to Ireland had done the great service of making Irish Catholicism look modern and liberal by contrast. But they said nothing, apart from nodding gravely in agreement.
Other patients might be more supportive, like Judy Murphy, who would tell anyone that the clinic was essential to those who wanted to live independent lives. Or that great woman Nora Dunne, with her piebald hair and her burning eyes, whose husband, Aidan, had regained his will to live. She was such an advertisement for them, particularly since she was a convert, with all the zeal that a convert brings. She had been so sure that the life with her gentle husband was over when he had his heart attack and now they seemed to feel immortal as a couple.
Even Lar, with his obsessive wish to make everyone learn something new every day, would be a good ambassador for what they were doing. Lar was remorselessly cheerful. If anyone asked him how he was, he always said that he was fighting fit and that a lot of rubbish was talked about heart failure. All you had to do was control it. If they had hired a PR firm to send out the message, they could never have come up with anything as good as Lar.
Ania had made them all name badges in big clear writing: green ones for patients, red ones for the staff and yellow for the guest lecturers.
“You haven't done a label for yourself,” Clara said, surprised.
“Oh, I wouldn't be worth a label,” Ania said. “What would I know if somebody asked me about the clinic?”
“More than most people. Do the label, Ania, this minute, or else I'll do one for you!”
“That's very kind of you, Clara.”
“And Johnny has a friend who is a photographer who's going to do a staff picture before it all begins, all of us with our names on us. There'll be a copy for everyone and if we like it we'll put it up on the wall here.” Clara was full of enthusiasm.