‘I wonder are you right.’ Nessa spoke thoughtfully, as to an equal.
‘I’m right,’ said her mother.
Eddie came back from his travels. He had found enough people to make the whole centre work. Exactly the kind of people they had always wanted to work with, some of whom had known their work too. It was flattering how well Chris and Eddie Barton were becoming known in Ireland.
The next thing was to visit the bank manager.
And the projections.
Eddie had asked the potential tenants to write their stories so that he and Chris could work out the costings. He also asked them to tell what had been successful or unsatisfactory in the previous places they had been.
He and Chris together read their reports.
They read of places where no visitors came because it wasn’t near enough to the town, places that the tour buses passed by because there was no time on the itinerary. They learned that it was best to be part of a community, not outside it. They sat together and realised that in many ways the schoolhouse was not the dream location they had thought.
‘That’s if we take notice of them,’ Chris said.
‘We have to take notice of them. That’s our research.’ Eddie’s face was sad.
‘Aren’t we better to know now than after?’ Chris said. ‘Though it’s awful to see a dream go up like that.’
‘What do you mean a dream go up like that? Haven’t we our eye on Nellie Dunne’s place after her time? That place is like a warren at the back.’
She saw Eddie smile again and that pleased her. ‘Come on, let’s tell Una.’ She leapt up and went to Eddie’s mother’s quarters.
‘I don’t mind where I am as long as I’m with the pair of you,’ said Mrs Barton. She also told them that she heard that both Foxy Dunne and Niall Hayes were said to have their eye on the school.
‘Then we’re better off not alienating good friends who happen to be good customers as well,’ said Chris. The two women laughed happily, like conspirators.
Father Gunn twisted and turned in his narrow bed. In his mind he was trying to write the letter to the Bishop, the letter that would get him a ruling about the Family of Hope. It now seemed definite that Madeleine Ross had given these sinister people the money to set up a centre in Shancarrig schoolhouse. They would be here in the midst of his parish, taking away his flock, preaching to them, in long robes, by the river.
Please let the Bishop know what to do.
Why had he made all those moves years ago to prevent a scandal? Wouldn’t God and the parish have been far better served if that half-cracked Father Brian Barry and that entirely cracked Maddy Ross had been encouraged to run away with each other? None of this desperate mess about the Family of Bloody Hope would ever have happened.
*
Terry and Nancy Dixon called in on Vera and Richard Hayes’s house on their way back home after their ramble.
‘We saw the most perfect schoolhouse. I think we should buy it together,’ Terry said. ‘It’s in that place you worked for a while, Shancarrig.’
‘We saw it advertised,’ Vera said, glancing at Richard.
‘And?’ The Dixons looked from one to the other. Richard’s eyes were far away.
‘Richard said he wasn’t happy in Shancarrig.’ Vera spoke for him.
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Nancy Dixon. ‘But you wouldn’t have to mix all that much. It would be just the perfect place to get away from it all. There’s a really marvellous tree.’
‘A copper beech,’ Richard said.
‘Yes, that’s right. It should go for a song. We talked to the solicitor but he wasn’t very forthcoming.’
‘That’s my uncle,’ Richard said.
The Dixons looked embarrassed. They said it was a younger man, must have been his son. Not someone who was going to set the world on fire? they ventured.
Richard wasn’t responding. ‘They all wrote their names on that tree,’ he said.
‘Aha! Perhaps you wrote your name on the tree, that’s why we can’t go back there.’ Vera was coquettish.
‘No. I never wrote my name there,’ Richard said. His eyes were still very far away.
‘Is there much interest from Dublin?’ Dr Jims asked his son.
‘No, I thought there’d be more. Maybe if we advertised it again.’
The two men walked regularly together in Shancarrig. Declan and Ruth were having a house built there now. They didn’t want the place in The Terrace. They wanted somewhere with more space, space for rabbits and a donkey, for the children they would have. Ruth was pregnant. They also felt that it was time to have a sub-office of O’Neill and Blake Estate Agents in Shancarrig. Many of the visitors who came to Ryan’s Shancarrig Hotel now wanted to buy sites. Foxy Dunne was only too ready to build on them.
‘What will it go for?’ Dr Jims had the school on his mind a lot.
‘We’ve had an offer of five. You know that.’ Declan Blake jerked his head across at Maddy Ross’s cottage.
‘We don’t want them, Declan.’
‘I can’t play God, Dad. I have to get the best price for my client.’
‘Your client is only the old Department of Education, son. They’re being done left, right and centre, or making killings all over the place. They don’t count.’
‘You’re honourable in your trade. I have to be in mine.’
‘I’m also human in mine.’ There was a silence.
If either of them was remembering how Dr Jims had bent the rules to help his son all those years ago neither of them said it.
‘Perhaps they’ll get outbidden.’ Declan didn’t seem very hopeful.
‘Has Niall Hayes dropped out?’
‘Yes. And Foxy Dunne – that’s a relief in a way. And so has Eddie. I wouldn’t want them raising the price on each other.’
‘There. You do have a heart.’ Dr Jims seemed pleased.
‘And nobody else?’
‘Nobody serious.’
‘Who knows what’s serious?’
‘All right, Dad. Maura. Michael’s mother. She says that she wants the place to be a home, a home for children like Michael, with someone to run it. And she’d help in it too. People like Michael who have no mothers … that’s what she wants.’
‘Well, isn’t that what we’d all want?’ said Dr Jims. ‘And if we want it, it can be done.’
Nobody ever knew what negotiation went on behind the scenes, how the Family of Hope were persuaded that it would be very damaging publicity to cross swords with a community which wanted to provide a home for Down’s syndrome children – and had raised the money for it. Maddy Ross was heard to say that she was just as glad that Sister Judith hadn’t been forced to meet the collective ignorance, superstition and bigotry of Shancarrig.
Foxy and Leo had provided a sister for Moore and Frances – Chris and Eddie a brother for the twins – Nessa and Niall a brother for Danny and Breda – Mr and Mrs Hayes had decided of their own volition to move downstairs to the basement of The Terrace and had their own front door by which they came and went – Declan and Ruth Blake had built their house and called their son James – the Kellys’ granddaughter Nora was walking – when the Shancarrig Home was opened.
There were photographs of it in all the papers and nice little pieces describing it.
But it was hard to do it justice, because all anyone could see was a stone house and a big tree.
Read on for an extract from Maeve Binchy’s heartwarming new novel
MINDING FRANKIE
Out in September from Orion
Price: £18.99
ISBN: 978-1-4091-1396-6
CHAPTER ONE
Katie Finglas was coming to the end of a tiring day in the salon. Anything bad that could happen had happened. A woman had not told them about an allergy and had come out with lumps and a rash on her forehead. A bride’s mother had thrown a tantrum and said that she looked like a laughing stock. A man who had wanted streaks of blond in his hair became apoplectic when halfway
through the process he had enquired what they would cost. Katie’s husband Garry had placed both his hands innocently on the shoulders of a sixty-year-old female client who had told him that she was going to sue him for sexual harassment and assault.
She looked at the man standing opposite her, a big priest with sandy hair mixed with grey.
‘You’re Katie Finglas and I gather you run this establishment,’ the priest said, looking around the innocent salon nervously as if it were a high-class brothel.
‘That’s right, Father,’ Katie said with a sigh. What could be happening now?
‘It’s just that I was talking to some of the girls who work here, down at the centre on the quays, you know, and they were telling me …’
Katie felt very tired. She employed a couple of school-leavers; she paid them properly, trained them. What could they have been complaining about to a priest?
‘Yes, Father, what exactly is the problem?’ she asked.
‘Well, it is a bit of a problem. I thought I should come to you directly as it were.’ He seemed a little awkward.
‘Very right, Father,’ Katie said, ‘So tell me what it is.’
‘It’s this woman, Stella Dixon. She’s in hospital you see …’
‘Hospital?’
Katie’s head reeled. What could this involve? Someone who had inhaled the peroxide?
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ She tried for a level voice.
‘Yes, but she wants a hairdo.’
‘You mean she trusts us again?’
Sometimes life was extraordinary.
‘No, I don’t think she was ever here before …’ He looked bewildered.
‘And your interest in all this, Father?’
‘I am Brian Flynn and I am acting chaplain at St Brigid’s Hospital at the moment while the real chaplain is in Rome on a pilgrimage. Apart from being asked to bring in cigarettes and drink for the patients, this is the only serious request I’ve had.’
‘You want me to go and do someone’s hair in hospital?’
‘She’s seriously ill. She’s dying. I thought she needed a senior person to talk to. Not, of course, that you look very senior. You’re only a girl yourself,’ the priest said.
‘God, weren’t you a sad loss to the women of Ireland when you went for the priesthood,’ Katie said. ‘Give me her details and I’ll bring my magic bag of tricks in to see her.’
‘Thank you so much, Ms Kelly. I have it all written out here.’
Father Flynn handed her a note.
A middle-aged woman approached the desk. She had glasses on the tip of her nose and an anxious expression.
‘I gather you teach people the tricks of hairdressing,’ she said.
‘Yes, or more the art of hairdressing, as we like to call it,’ Katie said.
‘I have a cousin coming home from America for a few weeks. She mentioned that in America there are places where you could get your hair done for near to nothing cost if you were letting people practise on you.’
‘Well, we do have a students’ night on Tuesdays; people bring in their own towels and we give them a style. They usually contribute five euros to a charity.’
‘Tonight is Tuesday!’ the woman cried triumphantly.
‘So it is,’ Katie said through gritted teeth.
‘So, could I book myself in? I’m Josie Lynch.’
‘Great, Mrs Lynch, see you after seven o’clock,’ Katie said, writing down the name.
Her eyes met the priest’s. There was sympathy and understanding there.
It wasn’t all champagne and glitter running your own hairdressing salon.
Josie and Charles Lynch had lived in 23 St Jarlath’s Crescent since they were married thirty-two years ago. They had seen many changes in the area. The corner shop had become a mini supermarket; the old laundry, where sheets had been ironed and folded, was now a laundromat, where people left big bags bulky with mixed clothes and asked for a service wash. There was now a proper medical practice with four doctors, where once there had been just old Doctor Gillespie who had brought everyone into the world and seen them out of it.
During the height of the economic boom, houses in St Jarlath’s Crescent had been changing hands for amazing sums of money. Small houses with gardens near the city centre were much in demand. Not any more, of course – the recession had been a great equaliser, but it was still a much more substantial area than it had been three decades ago.
After all, just look at Molly and Paddy Carroll with their son Declan – a doctor – a real, qualified doctor! And just look at Muttie and Lizzie Scarlet’s daughter Cathy. She ran a catering company that was hired for top events.
But a lot of things had changed for the worse. There was no community spirit any more. No church processions went up and down the Crescent on the feast of Corpus Christi as they used to three decades ago. Josie and Charles Lynch felt that they were alone in the world, and certainly in St Jarlath’s Crescent, in that they kneeled down at night and said the Rosary.
That had always been the way.
When they married, they planned a life based on the maxim that the family that prays together stays together. They had assumed they would have eight or nine children, because God never put a mouth into this world that He didn’t feed. But that wasn’t to happen. After Noel, Josie had been told there would be no more children. It was hard to accept. They both came from big families; their brothers and sisters had produced big families. But then, perhaps, it was all meant to be this way.
They had always hoped Noel would be a priest. The fund to educate him for the priesthood was started before he was three. Money was put aside from Josie’s wages at the biscuit factory. Every week a little more was added to the Post Office savings account and when Charles got his envelope on a Friday from the hotel where he was a porter, a sum was also put into the Post Office. Noel would get the best of priestly educations when the time came.
So it was with great surprise and a lot of disappointment that Josie and Charles learned that their quiet son had no interest whatsoever in a religious life. The Brothers said that he showed no sign of a vocation and when the matter had been presented to Noel as a possibility at the age of fourteen, he had said if it was the last job on earth he wouldn’t go for it.
That had been very definite indeed.
Not so definite, however, was what he actually would like to do. Noel was vague about this, except to say he might like to run an office. Not work in an office, but run one. He showed no interest in studying office management or bookkeeping or accounting or in any areas where the careers department tried to direct him. He liked art, he said, but he didn’t want to paint. If pushed he would say that he liked looking at paintings and thinking about them. He was good at drawing; he always had a notebook and a pencil with him and he was often to be found curled up in a corner, sketching a face or an animal. This did not, of course, lead to any career path, but Noel had never expected it to. He did his homework at the kitchen table, sighing now and then, but rarely ever excited or enthusiastic. At the parent–teacher meetings Josie and Charles had enquired about this. They wondered, did anything at school fire him up? Anything at all?
The teachers were at a loss. Most boys were unfathomable around fourteen or fifteen but they had usually settled down to do something. Or often to do nothing. Noel Lynch, they said, had just become even more quiet and withdrawn than he already was.
Josie and Charles wondered, could this be right?
Noel was quiet, certainly, and it had been a great relief to them that he hadn’t filled the house up with loud young lads thumping each other. But they had thought this was part of his spiritual life, a preparation for a future as a priest. Now it appeared that this was certainly not the case.
Perhaps, Josie suggested, it was only the Brothers’ brand of religious life that Noel objected to. In fact, might he have a different kind of vocation and want to become a Jesuit or a missionary?
Apparently not.
And when he
was fifteen he said that he didn’t really want to join in the family Rosary any more, it was only a ritual of meaningless prayers chanted in repetition. He didn’t mind doing good for people, trying to make less fortunate people have a better life, but surely no God could want this fifteen minutes of drone drone drone.
By the time he was sixteen they realised that he didn’t go to Sunday Mass any more. Someone had seen him up by the canal when he was meant to have been to the early Mass up in the church on the corner. He told them that there was no point in his staying on at school as there was nothing more he needed to learn from them. They were hiring office staff up at Hall’s and they would train him in office routine. He might as well go to work straight away rather than hang about.
The Brothers and the teachers at his school said it was always a pity to see a boy study and leave without a qualification, but still, they shrugged, it was very hard trying to interest the lad in anything at all. He seemed to be sitting and waiting for his schooldays to end. Could even be for the best if he left school now. Get him into Hall’s, the big builders’ merchants; give him a wage every week and then they might see where, if anywhere, his interest lay.
Josie and Charles thought sadly of the fund that had been growing in the Post Office for years. Money that would never be spent making Noel Lynch into a reverend. A kindly Brother suggested that maybe they should spend it on a holiday for themselves, but Charles and Josie were shocked. This money had been saved for God’s work; it would be spent on God’s work.
Noel got his place in Hall’s. He met his work colleagues but without any great enthusiasm. They would not be his friends and companions any more than his fellow students at the Brothers had become mates. He didn’t want to be alone all the time but it was often easier.
Over the years Noel had arranged with his mother that he would not join them at meals. He would have his lunch in the middle of the day and he would make a snack for himself in the evening. This way he missed the Rosary, the socialising with pious neighbours and the interrogation about what he had done with his day, which was the natural accompaniment to mealtimes in the Lynch household.