Quentins (35 page)

“E
lla says you and your wife were very good to her when she was in New York,” Barbara Brady said.

“My former wife, Kimberly, thinks very highly of Ella, and so do I. You have a very bright daughter, Barbara.”

“We love to hear that, any parent does. Do you have children, Mr. King?” Ella's father was more formal.

“Oh, call me Derry, please. No, no children. I wish we had. We are an unusual couple in that our separation did not make us enemies. We would have shared children quite amicably. I really do wish Kim well, and she me. I was resisting coming to Ireland for a lot of personal reasons from the past. Kim is delighted that I faced up to it at last.”

“And are
you
delighted?” Ella's father was sharp, observant.

“I'm not sure yet, Tim. It's early days.”

“You and she might get back together one day,” Barbara suggested.

“Oh, no, that's not going to happen. Kimberly has a new husband. They are very happy together.” He spoke simply, as if stating a fact.

Just then Brenda Brennan came in. He recognized her at once from the photographs in the Quentins file he had studied so carefully in New York. They didn't need to be introduced but talked together easily. She was, as
he knew already, very groomed and in control. But warm as well. She seemed genuinely interested in the things they had talked about, and eager that his stay in Ireland would be a good one.

“We'll want to keep you here in Dublin all the time, but you'll want to travel, maybe go to the West. It's not a big journey by American standards.”

“A perilous one on these roads, I'd say.”

“Not at all. Grand, big, wide motorways nowadays. You should have seen it back when,” she said proudly. “Where are your people from, by the way?”

“I have no people.”

“I'm sorry, I misunderstood. I thought Ella said you had an Irish background, as so many Americans coming here do, you see.”

“I do have an Irish background on one side of my family, but no people.”

“So you won't be looking for roots, then?”

“No way.” Derry realized he sounded sharp and short. He had better say something that made him seem less abrupt. “But as it happens, my father's people did come from Dublin.”

“Great. I like to hear of Dubs doing well. My husband is from the country, you see, and he says that they are the lads who succeed abroad.”

“I wouldn't say my father did well.” Derry's eyes were bleak.

Brenda Brennan had had a lifetime of reading faces and moods. “No? Well, his son doesn't look too much like a loser to me,” she said with a bright smile. She was rewarded. He smiled back. “Let me introduce you to a couple of people,” she said efficiently. “These are Ria and Colm. They run a magnificent restaurant on Tara Road, which you must visit while you're here and drop little cards advertising Quentins on each table!”

“As if she needed it!” Ria was small, dark and
curly-haired with a huge smile. Her husband was handsome and thoughtful-looking.

He saw Ella looking over to see that he was all right. He raised his glass to her. He felt for a moment as if he belonged here in this easy place where no demands were being made on him. He must beware of that feeling. It was probably brought on by the strange strong drink he had taken to recover from Ella's driving. He would have no more. In fact, this moment he would ask for an orange juice.

Beside him, the small, earnest face of a blond girl age ten or eleven appeared. “May I refresh your glass?” she asked.

“That's very good of you . . . um, do I know your name?”

“You might have been told about us. I'm Maud Mitchell. My brother, Simon, and I are providing the entertainment this afternoon.”

“Oh, isn't that splendid. I'm Derry. Derry King.”

“And what do we call you? Simon and I, we're always calling people the wrong thing.”

“Derry,” he said.

“Are you sure? You're much older than we are.”

“Yes, but I want to feel younger than I am, you see.”

Maud accepted this as normal and suggested that he have a grapefruit juice mixed with a tonic. It was meant to be refreshing. Of course, strictly speaking, it was actually two drinks, but since he was the guest of honor, it would probably be all right.

“Am I the guest of honor?” he asked.

“Yes, because we have to check with you about the entertainment. We can't dance because there isn't a proper floor, only an old carpet. We brought a puppet show, but Tom and Cathy think it might be too long. We were going to sing, and with you being an American, we were going to sing awful things like ‘When Irish Eyes
Are Smiling' and ‘Come Back to Erin,' which is what they all loved when we were in Chicago.”

“Are they awful things?”

“Well, they wouldn't sing them here, if you know what I mean. And then we were told you didn't want any of that stuff, you weren't a normal American.”

“No, no, that's true.” Derry was delighted with the child. “And what would they sing here, do you think, given your choice?”

“Well, ‘Raglan Road,' ‘Carrickfergus.' I'll ask Simon. He's better at judging, but the main thing is that we're not to bore you by singing too long. That's what we do sometimes, go on too long. The puppet play is seven minutes, so if we sang two songs, would that be fair?”

“That would be great,” he said. “Will you start now?”

“You must have very funny parties in America,” Maud said. “Of course we can't start now, we have to wait until they're all sitting down with their puddings and cups of coffee.”

“Ella, I'm desperately sorry about the twins monopolizing Mr. King,” said Cathy. “I've tried to break them up half a dozen times, but he says he's enchanted with them. He won't talk to anyone else.”

“Don't worry, he really is enjoying them. I've never seen him so happy,” Ella said.

“It's a great party, Dee,” Ella said.

“Nicky and Sandy are a little disappointed they can't talk to him more—he's spending all his time with those kids.”

“He keeps shunting people away when they try to rescue him,” Ella said. “I wish I knew what they were talking about.”

“Brenda Brennan can actually lip-read,” Deirdre said. “I'll ask her later.”

The twins were busy explaining who they were. “You see Cathy over there with the big stomach? It's a baby actually, but that's not the point.”

“No,” Derry agreed.

“Well, she's the daughter of Muttie, and Lizzie, his wife. And we once went to live with Cathy and the husband she had then, who was Neil Mitchell, and he's our cousin. Neil's father and our father are brothers. So that's it!” She was triumphant.

“But you live with Muttie?”

“Yes. And his wife, Lizzie.”

“Good. But why, exactly?”

“Father and Mother aren't able to have us. They'd like to, but they're not able to so we go and see them on weekends to say hallo. Muttie drives us in his van.”

“And why can't your parents have you?”

“Mother has bad nerves and then Father goes traveling. It's better we stay with Muttie and his wife, Lizzie.”

“Nerves?'

“Yes, she gets worried about things and then she drinks lots of vodka and doesn't know where she is anymore.”

“And why does she do that? Drink the vodka?” Derry asked.

“It helps her nerves. It's like a magic potion. She forgets whatever was upsetting her. The trouble is that she makes no sense and falls down and everyone gets cross with her,” Maud said.

“But if she stopped, then you could both go and live with her, couldn't you?” Derry was unforgiving about a woman who could leave such marvelous children with strangers.

They explained that they had a brother, but he had done some crime, he was never spoken of, and he didn't come home. One time he used to work in Neil's father's
office with Uncle Jock, but he didn't anymore and he had gone away. “Are we talking too much about ourselves? We haven't asked you any questions so that you could have a bit of talking,” Maud wondered.

“Not much to know about me. My father had bad nerves too. He used whiskey as a magic potion to make them better. Lots of it.”

“And did it work?” Maud asked.

“No, not at all. It made him worse.”

“And did your mother go wandering off on travels like our father does?” Simon was so innocent, it nearly broke Derry's heart to see children accepting this intolerable state of affairs.

“No, she couldn't. She had to raise her children and raise us without any money or support.” His face was hard now.

The children noticed. Maud spoke gently. “But if his nerves were bad, what could anyone do about it?”

“He could have tried to stop drinking. He could have kept a proper tongue in his head to my mother.”

“But he didn't
mean
all those things,” Simon explained as if to a simpleton. “When Mother has been drinking she tells Father terrible things like that he has other ladies, and that we are monsters and sneak money from her purse. None of us take any notice.”

“What?” Derry was amazed.

“Well, you
can't
take any notice, they don't mean it. Wouldn't they much prefer to be living a nice, peaceful life like everyone else?”

“And you don't hate them both?”

Simon and Maud looked at him as if he were from another world. “
Hate
them? Your mother and father? Nobody could do that. It isn't possible.” They spoke every second sentence.

He was silent for a while. The twins looked at each other. He looked as if he might be going to cry.

“Are you all right, Mr. Derry?” Maud said.

“Did we talk too much?” Simon wondered.

Derry King shook his head.

“Do you think we should do the entertainment now?” Simon asked Maud.

“Maybe it mightn't be right for entertainment, Simon, you know the way it sometimes just isn't and everyone expects us to know.”

“I could check with Cathy,” Simon agreed.

“But we don't want to leave him all upset,” Maud said.

Derry still had said nothing. His face was working as he tried to hide his emotions.

“Maybe, Mr. Derry, you could go behind the sofa and have a big cry if you want to about your father's nerves and then you'd feel better. Often, when we go to see Mother, afterward we have a big cry to think of all she missed. Would you like to do that?”

“No, but I might have one later.” He stumbled out the words.

“Yes, I bet you will.” She patted him consolingly on the hand in the shared friendship of those who were children of the nervy.

Brenda Brennan, who was lip-reading, reported the conversation to Ella. “Maud is urging him to go behind the sofa and have a big cry.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Is he going to?”

“He says he'll have one later.”

“And what's the boy saying?”

“He's wondering whether they should get on with the entertainment,” Brenda reported.

“I think they should start it almost at once, don't you?” said Ella.

Cathy announced that the puppet play, which was about seven minutes long, was called “The Salmon of Knowledge,” but the salmon puppet itself had been damaged in
transit and had lost some of his scales, so everyone was to imagine it more scaly. The audience cheered it to the echo, Maud and Simon took several bows. They asked if there were any requests for songs. They were allowed to sing two, they said, looking eagerly around the room, sure of the delighted enthusiasm they would receive.

Derry King couldn't bear them to wait one more second. He heard himself calling for a song. “Carrickfergus.” He didn't know it at all, he just remembered the name the twins said people liked.

They had true little voices and stood very still, side by side, singing the song of lost love and dreams.

The seas are deep, love, and I can't swim over

And neither more have I wings to fly

I wish I met with a handy boatman

Who'd ferry over my love and I . . .

Derry felt a very unaccustomed prickling in his nose and eyes. He
hated
this kind of music, glorifying loss and building up a sentimental image of the Old Country. He was not going to let two simple children who had seen no violence in their home make him change his own attitudes. Jim Kennedy was a violent man who had made life hell for everyone around him. There was no way Derry was going to go all soft on him now. There was just some small seed there that made him think he understood why his mother forgave him so often. It must have been some kind of belief like these children had said, that Jim Kennedy like any other drunk would have preferred a different life, but it had somehow escaped him. Was that in his mother's heart as she insisted on staying in the home that Derry had been urging her to leave?