The Restaurant Read online

  He’s mad. Now who’s getting wound up? ‘I did a good job,’ she repeats. ‘Didn’t I?’

  ‘You had no right to lie like that.’

  ‘OK.’ She turns away. She shouldn’t have brought it up. Now she’s gone and made things tricky between them again.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep walking off.’

  Here he comes again. No getting rid of him.

  ‘Look, I’m not denying you did a good job – but you should have been honest.’

  ‘Really? Like you would have employed a sixteen-year-old.’

  ‘To look after my bedridden father? Of course I wouldn’t.’

  They reach Madge’s house. ‘Lottie’s in here,’ she says curtly, lifting the knocker. ‘I think we have it all said, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Any other lies you want to confess to?’

  She lowers the knocker with a loud sigh. ‘Why don’t you let it go? It was over eight years ago, for crying out loud. I didn’t kill your father, I looked after him as well as anyone would have – and for your information, he loved having a baby in the house. I would leave her in his room when I had to clean: he’d sit up in bed just gazing at her in her carrier. Sometimes I put her down for her nap in the bed beside him, and I’d sing them both to sleep. He was damn lucky to have me looking after him!’

  He scratches his cheek, runs a hand through his hair. ‘Don’t push it,’ he says.

  ‘Well, he was – and I was happy to be there. We got on wonderfully – he was like a dad for me too, and a damn sight nicer to me than my own. Why do you think I bought the house? Because I loved living there, and because I knew Gerry wanted for it to be our home after his time.’

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘You’re right. No point in getting mad now.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Just one more thing. Did you ever tell Dad your real age?’

  ‘No way. I was afraid he might get nervous, being looked after by a kid.’ She risks a smile.

  His face softens slightly. Not a smile, but not far off it. ‘The truth is, I always thought you were great,’ he says in a rush. ‘You were brilliant with him. I never thanked you properly for looking after him. So now you’re what – twenty-four?’

  ‘Twenty-five.’ She remembers her parents, and the promised follow-up phone call. ‘Listen, I gotta get going.’

  ‘Right.’ He extends a hand. ‘Truce,’ he says, and she shakes it.

  ‘Truce,’ she repeats. ‘See you around.’

  He turns from her again, starts to walk off.

  ‘Hey,’ she calls, an impulse coming to her, ‘I wouldn’t mind showing you the house sometime, if you ever wanted to see it again.’ Why not? Why not let all that water run under that bridge? ‘Not right now, there’s a call I’m expecting – but maybe another time.’

  He looks back. He wasn’t expecting that. She can almost see the cogs in his brain pattering about, wondering what to do. ‘That would be good,’ he says slowly.

  ‘How about Saturday afternoon?’

  ‘I think I could manage that.’

  ‘We go to the market in the morning but we’ll be back around two. Why don’t you swing by at two thirty?’

  ‘OK,’ he says, lifting a hand. ‘Thank you. See you then. Say hi to Madge,’ he adds, and it hits her only then that he’d know all the old neighbours, of course he would. This was where he’d grown up, where he’d spent his childhood and adolescence.

  She was wrong about him. Her mind all made up until Nora, and now he himself, unmade it for her. She bangs the knocker at Madge’s, and waits until the new kitten is installed in her carrier. Tinkerbell, Lottie’s christened her, because the teacher is reading Peter Pan to them at school.

  ‘Guess what?’ Heather says, as they walk the short distance home with the carrier between them. ‘I have a surprise for you.’

  Lottie looks up at her hopefully. ‘Chicken nuggets for dinner?’

  Poor kid, such low expectations. ‘Better than that. We’re going to see your granddad and grandma. They want to meet you.’

  The child’s eyes widen. ‘You mean – in America?’

  ‘I do. We’re going to fly in a plane.’

  ‘Cool! Can Tinkerbell come?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, honey. She’d hate it – cats don’t really enjoy flying – but I’m sure Madge will be happy to look after her.’ Hopefully. They’ll bring her back a nice gift. ‘Your grandma and grandpa are really looking forward to getting to know you. They’re gonna call you on the phone in a bit to say hi.’

  She’ll book the flights this evening. Cost won’t come into it. Hell, they can fly first class. Even though she has no interest in it, she can’t deny that money comes in handy now and again.

  ‘I hope they like me,’ Lottie says, as Heather pushes the front-door key into the lock. ‘Granddad and Grandma, I mean.’

  Heather regards her child, her precious gift. ‘They’re gonna love you, sweetheart.’

  They’d better. She’ll really and truly kill them if they don’t.

  Emily

  THEY’RE HAVING AN AFFAIR. EXCEPT, OF COURSE, they’re not, with neither of them promised to someone else. But the secrecy makes it feel like that.

  ‘I’ll tell them,’ she promises.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Soon.’

  He pretends to be cross. He isn’t cross. ‘I’ve told Mum,’ he says, winding one of her curls around his finger. She’d forgotten how he liked to do that.

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She’s delighted.’

  Will Emily’s parents be delighted? Far from it. She’ll have to win them over. And Daniel will definitely need to be won over. Daniel will most assuredly not be delighted.

  She wishes it wasn’t complicated. She wishes she and Ferg had just met for the first time, instead of reconnecting after a traumatic split. Not that reconnecting is all that bad, when every day brings a reminder of why she fell for him first time round.

  He sends her flowers, gorgeous bouquets that fill her living room with scent and colour. He orders things online to be delivered to her: a white china teapot, so delicate she can almost see through it; prints of her favourite paintings; a baby-blue scarf in such a fine cashmere weave that she’s sure he’s sending her an empty box for a joke; a white-gold neck chain from which a slender wishbone is suspended.

  He phones every afternoon, and sometimes at night too, after the restaurant is closed. They speak like the lovers they are, like the lovers they’ve become again.

  ‘Miss you.’

  ‘Miss you too.’

  ‘Wish you were here all the time.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I want to wake up with you every morning. I want to fall asleep with you in my arms.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘Love you more.’

  She loves him more.

  It’s different, this time round. There isn’t the heady rush she remembers, when he filled her thoughts every hour of the day, when the prospect of seeing him was almost unbearably exciting. Now it’s slower, it’s gentler. They’ve done the fireworks, they’ve gone beyond them – and who needs fireworks anyway, at twenty-nine?

  She takes the bus to Dublin every Monday afternoon, after the usual Monday shopping and sorting and cleaning are out of the way. She makes her way to his apartment, where she puts leftovers into his oven and pours herself a glass of wine and sits on his balcony that overlooks the Liffey while she waits for him to come home to her.

  The following day they breakfast together. She walks with him to his workplace and keeps going to the bus station, picking up on her way a box of Ferrero Rocher or a scented candle for Maud Clarke, who lives next door to the restaurant and feeds Barney while Emily is gone. You had a good trip? Maud asks every time, and Emily tells her she did, and no more is said.

  Spending that time in Dublin every week is tricky. It
means getting up earlier the other mornings to keep on top of her second job – but she doesn’t grudge it, particularly at this time of the year, when daylight hours are long and generous. Time enough to worry about winter – who knows where the next few months will take them?

  They meet only briefly on Saturdays, when he comes to town to see his mother. With Emily working, a snatched walk in what she has come to think of as their park is all they can manage. He hasn’t been to the restaurant yet. I know I have to wait, he said, until we go public – but she hates that he can’t put his face in there, in case one of her friends spots him.

  She must tell them. She must make it soon.

  She decides to start with Heather. Heather can be her sounding board.

  ‘I figured you’d get back together,’ Heather says. ‘I guessed that would happen.’

  ‘Did you? Am I that transparent?’

  ‘You’re that forgiving.’

  ‘… Do you think I’m making a mistake?’

  Heather lifts a shoulder. ‘Do you?’

  Does she? ‘No. I wouldn’t do it if I thought that.’

  ‘No, of course you wouldn’t.’ Heather searches her face. ‘Are you happy, Emily? Are you really happy with him? Does he really and truly make you happy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case, I wish you the very best of luck. I hope it works out this time.’

  ‘Thanks … Are you all set for the States?’

  ‘Boy, are we ever. Lottie’s already packed fourteen times – or that’s what it feels like.’

  ‘How are you getting to the airport?’

  Heather picks at a thread in her sleeve. ‘We have a ride organised. We’re all set.’

  ‘Safe trip. Hope it goes well.’

  On impulse, when Astrid shows up the following day for lunch, Emily tells her too. Another sounding board, another who never knew Ferg.

  ‘I’ve got back together with a man I was engaged to,’ she says. They’ve opted to sit outside on the orange bench while they await Astrid’s taxi, the rest of the lunchtime customers having departed, and the day being warm and sunny.

  Astrid turns to face her. ‘You were engaged to him?’

  ‘Yes, a long time ago.’

  ‘And may I ask, dear, what prevented you from getting married?’

  It’s kindly put, and it’s a legitimate question. Emily must answer truthfully. ‘He panicked, Astrid. He couldn’t go through with it. He … never turned up at the church.’

  She sees Astrid digesting this. ‘So you had no warning.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And afterwards? Did he come and explain?’

  ‘No, he left the country.’ How badly it reflects on him. How cruel it makes him sound. ‘But he’s different now, really he is. It was four years ago, and he’s apologised. We’re both older – and we don’t have to get married. Lots of people don’t.’

  She stops. Astrid lets the silence drift on. Has Emily offended her with implications of living as a married couple without the blessing of a church, or any institution?

  A man walks past them carrying a stack of books. A jet-black cat sprawls in the dappled shade of a nearby rowan tree. Emily doesn’t remember seeing it before, wonders if Barney has crossed paths with it. A small blue van pulls up outside the carpet shop: its driver gives them a cheery wave on his way in.

  ‘But I think,’ Astrid says, lifting her hand in a return wave, ‘that you would like to be a bride. I think you would like to be a wife.’

  Emily watches the cat as it rises unhurriedly, and stretches forelimbs and hind limbs in typical cat fashion, and settles down again. ‘Well, I— Maybe some day. There’s no rush.’

  The truth is, she can’t think about another wedding day, not when the first went so awry – but the truth also is that she would love that promise, that commitment. She would love the feeling of being entwined with someone, connected in that way with someone, for the rest of their days.

  ‘Be careful,’ Astrid says quietly. ‘Look after your heart, dear.’

  Yes, that’s what they’ll all say. Everyone will be concerned. Everyone will advise her to take care, to mind herself. But when it comes to love, there are no guarantees – so how can she be careful? What can she do but trust him not to run away again?

  ‘I didn’t love my husband,’ Astrid says then. ‘Or rather, I wasn’t in love with him, I never fell in love with him. But he was a good, decent man, and I felt I’d be safe with him, and I was. And over the years, a kind of love grew in me, and I was content in our marriage.’

  The first time she’s spoken of him. Emily doesn’t know what to say in response, so they sit in silence as the minutes tick by, as the driver of the blue van leaves again, as the cat dozes on.

  ‘What about your garden?’ Emily asks at length. ‘How’s that going?’

  ‘The garden,’ Astrid repeats, winding the handles of her cloth bag between her fingers. ‘It’s a work in progress,’ she says, nodding. ‘It will take a while.’

  ‘Isn’t Bill’s daughter doing it, or did I imagine that?’

  Astrid starts to speak, and catches herself. And then she starts again. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘that was the plan.’ She stops. ‘This is in confidence, Emily.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘She called to the house. Christine. It must be more than two weeks ago now.’

  Christine, yes. Emily had forgotten the name.

  ‘So she’s started?’

  Astrid shakes her head. ‘She said she would, and she was to come back the following day – but she never turned up.’

  ‘Really? That’s … odd. And she didn’t ring to say why?’

  ‘No.’ Astrid lifts a hand, lets it drop. ‘I feel,’ she begins, and comes to another halt. ‘I think there are problems,’ she says, and Emily remembers Bill bringing flowers to his dead wife on her anniversary, standing alone by her grave in the cemetery, unaccompanied by their daughter, the child they had made together.

  She shouldn’t have talked to him about Ferg that day; it wasn’t the time or the place. It’s just that there’s something lovely about Bill, something warm and sympathetic. He seemed the ideal person to confide in, when she was trying to decide if she’d done the right thing in getting back with Ferg. Would you think a person deserves a second chance? she’d asked, and Bill had said definitely, as she’d sensed he would. Like her, Bill would give everyone a second chance.

  But he looked so downcast that day, and he left the cemetery right afterwards. He hasn’t set foot in the restaurant since.

  ‘I haven’t seen him lately,’ she says. ‘Bill, I mean.’

  ‘I met him not so long ago,’ Astrid replies, ‘outside the nursing home. I was in a taxi – on my way here, in fact. I offered him a lift, but he told me he’d already eaten.’

  ‘Oh …’ Could Emily have offended him in some way? Surely not. She replays their short exchange from the cemetery in her head, and finds nothing he could possibly object to.

  ‘I’m guessing Christine is on his mind … You and I don’t have children, Emily. It’s hard for us to fathom what might drive a parent and child apart, but it must be something significant – and it must cause such sorrow when it happens.’

  ‘Yes …’

  You and I don’t have children. It’s hard for her to hear it. But unlike Astrid, she has time. At twenty-nine she still has lots of time – and now she has Ferg again to make it happen. Four years ago, the notion of them having children was something they rarely talked about, a consideration they could push ahead of them into the future, but she remembers them agreeing that they’d like it to happen sometime.

  There will be a child for them, more than one: she’s certain of it. Eventually.

  And eventually she summons her courage and tells her brother Daniel.

  ‘I just hope you know what you’re doing, Em,’ he says, not showing much surprise at the news. Maybe guessing, like Heather had, that they were going to reunite, despite Emily’s assura
nces that they wouldn’t. ‘You know I wish it hadn’t happened – I wish you were with someone else – but I hope it turns out OK for you.’

  ‘Fingers crossed,’ she says lightly, and he doesn’t return her smile.

  ‘Will you be nice to him?’ she asks. ‘Or civil, at least?’ He shrugs and says he will for her sake, and she has to be content with that.

  Her old friends, the ones who went through the bad time with her, react in precisely the way she expected them to. ‘How could you?’ they ask. ‘What were you thinking, Em? What on earth possessed you?’ And she tries to explain, tries to convince them that he’s changed, but she sees the doubt in their faces, and she knows none of them truly believes that this time she and Ferg will last. She’ll just have to prove it, they both will, by staying together.

  Sarah, at least, is pleased. I’m so very glad, she said, when Ferg phoned home last time Emily was in Dublin, and passed the phone to her. You’re made for one another, anyone can see that. He’s so happy now, Emily. Thank you for giving him another chance. You must come to tea, any evening that suits you.

  I have some good news, she writes to her own parents. Better in a letter than on the phone. Fergal is back in Ireland, he’s working in Dublin now, and we’re going to try again. We’ve sorted it all out, and we’re making a fresh start. I wish you could see how sorry he is about what happened. I really feel it will work this time, and I hope you can both be happy for me. She posts it and waits – and now it’s three days later and her phone is ringing, as she’s kneading dough in the early morning.

  ‘Emily, I don’t believe it,’ her mother says without preamble. ‘I can’t believe you’re having anything more to do with that man.’

  ‘I just feel he deserves another—’

  ‘He deserves nothing, not a thing from you!’

  ‘But he’s sorry, he really is – and if I can forgive him, surely you can.’

  ‘Emily, please don’t make us out to be the unreasonable ones here. Do you honestly not remember what he did, and how you were after it? You were heartbroken, the man broke your heart – and he didn’t even have the courage to do it to your face!’

  And on it goes. And her father, when he comes on the line, is no easier to convince.