Authors: Maeve Binchy
He and Stella had had many good conversations about single-malt whiskey, about the quarterfinals in the soccer World Cup, about the unequal division of wealth in the world. She said that she had one more thing to do before she was off to the next world, whatever it might bring. Just one thing. But she had a sort of hope that it was all going to work out all right. And could Father Flynn kindly ask that nice hairdresser to come again fairly soon? She needed to look well when she did this one last thing.
Father Flynn paced his small apartment with the soccer posters nailed to the wall to cover the damp patches. Maybe he would ask Stella did she know anywhere for him to live. It might be tactless since he
was
going to live and she wasn’t, but it would be better than
looking into her ravaged face and haunted eyes and trying to make sense of it all.
In St. Jarlath’s Crescent, Josie and Charles Lynch whispered long and happily into the night. Imagine—this time last night they hadn’t even met Emily and now their lives had been turned right around. They had a dog, they had a lodger and, for the first time in months, Noel had sat and talked to them. They had begun a campaign to have St. Jarlath recognized properly.
Things were better on every front.
And, amazingly, things continued well on every front.
A message came to the hotel from a psychiatric hospital saying that Caesar’s mother, Mrs. Monty, was unavoidably detained there and that she hoped Caesar was being adequately looked after. The hotel manager, bewildered by this, was relieved to know that the matter was all in hand and somewhat embarrassed to learn that the rescuer had been that old porter he had just made redundant. Charles Lynch seemed to bear him no ill will but let slip the fact that he was looking forward to some kind of retirement ceremony. The manager made a note to remind himself or someone to organize something for the fellow.
At the biscuit factory they were surprised to hear that Josie was going to work part-time and raise money for a statue to St. Jarlath. Most of the others who worked with her were desperate to hold on to their jobs at any cost.
“We’ll have to give you a great sendoff when you finally retire, Josie,” one of the women said.
“I’d really prefer a contribution to the St. Jarlath’s statue fund,” Josie said. And there was a silence not normally known in the biscuit factory.
· · ·
Noel Lynch found the days endless in Hall’s Builders’ Merchants. The mornings were hard to endure without any alcohol. The nice fuzzy afternoons were gone and replaced now by hours of mind-numbing checking of delivery dockets against sales slips. His only pleasure was leaving a glass of mineral water on his desk and watching from the distance as Mr. Hall either smelled it or tasted it.
Noel could see only too well that his job could easily be done by a not-very-bright twelve-year-old. It was hard to know how the company had survived as long as it had. But in spite of everything he stuck to it, and before too long he was able to chalk up a full week without alcohol.
Matters were much helped by Emily’s presence at Number 23. Every evening there was a well-cooked meal served at seven o’clock and, with no long evenings to spend in Casey’s bar, Noel found himself sitting at the kitchen table eating with his parents and cousin.
They fell into an easy routine: Josie set the table and prepared the vegetables, Charles built up the fire and helped Noel to wash up. Emily had even managed to put off the Rosary on the grounds that they all needed this joint time to plan their various crusades, such as what strategy they should use to get the fund-raising started for St. Jarlath’s statue and how Emily could go out and earn a living for herself and where they would find dogs for Charles to walk and if Noel should do night classes in business or accountancy in order to advance himself at Hall’s.
Emily had, in one week, managed to get more information out of Noel about the nature of his work than his parents had learned in years. She had even been able to collect brochures, which she went over with Noel. This course looked good, but rather too general; the other looked more specific, but might not be relevant to his work at Hall’s. Little by little, she had learned of the mundane clerical officer–type work Noel did all day—the matching of invoices, paying of suppliers and gathering of expenditure data from departments at the end of the month. She discovered that there were young fellows in the company who had “qualifications,” who had a degree or a diploma, and they climbed up what passed for a
corporate ladder in the old-fashioned builders’ providers store that was Hall’s.
Emily spent no time regretting time wasted in the past or wrong decisions or Noel’s wish to leave his school and not continue with education. When they were alone one night, she said to him that the whole business of beating a dependency on alcohol was often a question of having adequate support.
“Did I ever tell you that I was battling against alcohol?” Noel asked her.
“You don’t need to, Noel. I’m the daughter of an alcoholic. I know the territory. Your uncle Martin thought he could do it on his own. We lived through that one.”
“Maybe he didn’t choose AA. Maybe he wasn’t a social man. He could have been a bit like me and didn’t want a lot of other people knowing his business,” Noel said in his late uncle’s defense.
“He wasn’t nearly as good a man as you are, Noel. He had a very closed mind.”
“Oh, I think I have a closed mind too.”
“No, you don’t. You’ll get help if you need it. I know you will.”
“It’s just I don’t go along with this thing ‘I’m Noel. I’m an alcoholic’ and then they all say, ‘Ho, Noel’ and I’m meant to feel better.”
“People have felt better for it,” Emily said mildly. “They have a great success rate.”
“It’s all a matter of ‘me and my illness’; it’s making it so dramatic for them all, as if they are heroes of some kind of thing that’s working itself out onstage.”
Emily shrugged. “So AA doesn’t do it for you. Fine. One day you might need them. They will still be there, that’s for sure. Now let’s look at these courses. I know what CPA means, but what are ACA and ACCA? Tell me the difference between them and what they mean.”
And Noel could feel his shoulders relaxing. She wasn’t going to nag him. That was the main thing. She had moved on and was asking
his advice on other matters. Where could she get timber to make window boxes? Would his father be able to make them? Where might Emily get some regular paid work? She could run an office easily. Would it be a good idea to get a washing machine for the household, as they were all going to be so busy raising money for St. Jarlath’s statue?
“Emily, you don’t think that will really happen—the statue business, do you?”
“I was never more sure of anything in my life,” Emily said.
Katie Finglas went to the hospital again. Stella Dixon looked worse than before: her face thin, her arms bony and her round stomach more noticeable.
“This has got to be a really good hairdo, Katie,” Stella said, as she inhaled the cigarette down to her toes. As usual, the other patients kept watch in case a nurse or hospital official should come by and catch Stella in the act.
“Have you set your eye on someone?” Katie asked. She wished that she could take a group of her more difficult clients into this ward so they could see the skin-and-bones woman who knew nothing ahead of her except the certainty that she would die shortly after they did the cesarean section to remove her baby. It made their problems so trivial in comparison.
Stella considered the question. “It’s a bit late for me to have my eye on anyone at this stage,” she said. “But I
am
asking someone to do me a favor, so I have to look normal, you know, not mad or anything. That’s why I thought a more settled type of hairstyle would be good.”
“Right, we’ll make you look settled,” Katie said, taking out the plastic tray that she would put over the hand basin to wash Stella’s thin, frail-looking head with its pre-Raphaelite mass of red curly hair. She had styled it already, but the curls kept coming back as if they had decided not to take any notice of the diagnosis that the rest of her body was having to cope with.
“What kind of a favor is it?” she asked, just to keep the conversation going.
“It’s the biggest thing you could ever ask anyone to do,” Stella said.
Katie looked at her sharply. The tone had changed and suddenly the fire and life had gone out of the girl who had entertained the ward and made people smuggle her in packets of cigarettes and do sentry duty so that she would not be discovered.
“Call for you, Noel,” Mr. Hall said. Nobody ever telephoned Noel at work. The few calls he got came in through his cell phone. He went to Mr. Hall’s office nervously. This was a time he would normally have had a drink; it was the low time of morning and he always liked a drink to help him cope with an unexpected event.
“Noel? Do you remember me, Stella Dixon? We met at the line dancing night last year.”
“I do, indeed,” he said, pleased. A lively redhead who could match him drink for drink. She had been good fun. Not someone he would want to meet now, though. Too interested in the gargle for him to meet up with her these days. “Yes, I remember you well,” he added.
“We sort of drifted away from each other back then,” she said.
It had been a while back. Nearly a year. Or was it six months? It was so hard to remember everything.
“That’s right,” Noel said evasively. Almost every friendship he had sort of drifted away, so there was nothing new about this.
“I need to see you, Noel,” she said.
“I’m afraid I don’t go out too much these days, Stella,” he began. “Not into the old line dancing, I’m afraid.”
“Me neither. I’m in the oncology ward of St. Brigid’s, so in fact I don’t go out at all.”
He focused on trying to remember her: feisty, jokey, always playing it for a laugh. This was shocking news indeed.
“So would you like me to come and see you sometime? Is that it?”
“Please, Noel, today. At seven.”
“Today …?”
“I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”
He saw Mr. Hall hovering. He must not be seen to dither. “See you then, Stella,” he said, and wondered what on earth she wanted to see him about. But, even more urgently, he wondered how he could approach a cancer ward to visit a woman he barely remembered.
And
approach her without a drink.
It was more than any man could bear.
The corridors of St. Brigid’s were crowded with visitors at seven o’clock. Noel threaded his way among them. He saw Declan Carroll, who lived up the road from him, walking ahead of him and ran to catch him up.
“Do you know where the female oncology ward is, Declan?”
“This lift over here will take you to the wing. Second floor.” Declan didn’t ask who Noel was visiting or why.
“I didn’t know there were so many sick people,” Noel said, looking at the crowds.
“Still, there’s lots that can be done for them these times compared to when our parents were young.” Declan was always one for the positive view.
“I suppose that’s the way to look at it, all right,” Noel agreed. He seemed a bit down, but then Noel was never a barrel of laughs.
“Right, Noel. Maybe I’ll see you for a pint later? In Casey’s, on our way home?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I don’t drink anymore,” Noel said in a tight little voice.
“Good man, yourself.”
“And, anyway, I was actually barred from Casey’s.”
“Oh, well, to hell with them then. Big barn of a place anyway.” Declan was being supportive, but he had a lot on his mind. Their first baby was due in the next several weeks and Fiona was up to high doh over everything. Plus his mother had knitted enough tiny garments
for a multiple birth even though they knew they were going to have only one baby.
He could have done with a nice, undemanding pint with Noel. But that was obviously not on the cards now. He sighed and went purposefully towards a patient who was busy making plans to come out of hospital soon and wanted Declan to try to hurry up the process. The man’s diagnosis said that he would never leave the hospital, sooner or later, and would die there within weeks. It was hard to rearrange your face to see something optimistic in this, but somehow Declan managed it.
It went with the territory.
There were six women in the ward. None of them had great, tumbling red curly hair.
One very thin woman in the corner bed was waving at him.
“Noel, Noel, it’s Stella! Don’t tell me I’ve changed
that
much!”
He was dismayed. She was skin and bone. She had clearly made a huge effort: her hair was freshly washed and blow-dried, she had a trace of lipstick on and she wore a white Victorian nightdress with a high neck and cuffs. He remembered her smile, but that was all.
“Stella. Good to see you,” he mumbled.
She swung her thin legs out of the bed and gestured for him to pull the curtains around them.
“Any ciggies?” she whispered hopefully.
“In
here
, Stella?” He was shocked.
“Particularly in here. Well, you obviously didn’t bring me any, so reach me my sponge bag there. The other girls will keep watch.”
He looked on, horrified, as she pulled a cigarette from behind her toothpaste, lit it expertly and made a temporary ashtray out of an old envelope.
“How have you been?” he asked and instantly wished he hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t been well—otherwise why was she wasting away in front of his eyes in a cancer ward? “I mean, how are things?” he asked, even more foolishly.
“Things have been better, Noel, to be honest.”
He tried to imagine what Emily might say in the circumstances. She had a habit of asking questions that required you to think.
“What’s the very worst thing about it all, Stella?”
She paused to think, as he had known she would.
“I think the very worst thing is that you won’t believe me,” she said.
“Try me,” he said.
She stood up and paced the tiny cubicle. It was then he realized that she was pregnant. Very pregnant. And at exactly that moment she spoke to him.