Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [10]
“Could I have a pint, please, Mossy?”
“Ah, now, that’s not such a good idea, Noel. You know you’re barred. My father said …”
“Your father says a lot of things in the heat of the moment. That barring order is long over now.”
“No, it’s not, Noel. I’m sorry, but there it is.”
Noel felt a tick in his forehead. He must be careful now.
“Well, that’s his decision and yours. As it happens, I have given up drink and what I was actually asking for was a pint of lemonade.”
Mossy looked at him openmouthed. Noel Lynch off the liquor? Wait till his father heard this!
“But if I’m not welcome in Casey’s, then I’ll have to take my custom elsewhere. Give my best to your father.” Noel made as if to leave.
“When did you give up the gargle?” Mossy asked.
“Oh, Mossy, that’s not any of your concern these days. You must go ahead serving alcohol to folks here. Am I interfering with your right to do this? I am most definitely not.”
“Wait a minute, Noel,” Mossy called out to him.
Noel said he was sorry but he had to go now. And he walked, head high, out of the place where he had spent so much of his leisure time.
There was a cold wind blowing down the street as Noel leaned against the wall and thought over what he had just said. He had spoken only in order to annoy Mossy, a foolish, mumbling mouthpiece for his father’s decisions. Now he had to live with his words. He could never drink in Casey’s again.
He would have to go to that place where Declan Carroll’s father went with his huge bear of a dog. The place where nobody had friends or mates or people they met there. They called them “Associates.” Muttie Scarlet was always about to confer with his Associates over the likely outcome of a big race or a soccer match. Not a place that Noel had enjoyed up to now.
Wouldn’t it be much easier if he really had given up drink? Then Mr. Hall could find whatever bottles he liked. Mr. Casey would be regretful and apologetic, which would be a pleasure to see. Noel himself would have all the time in the world to go back to doing the things he really wanted. He might go back and get a business certificate so as to qualify for a promotion. Maybe even move out of St. Jarlath’s Crescent.
Noel went for a long, thoughtful walk around Dublin, up the canal, down through the Georgian squares. He looked into restaurants where men of his own age were sitting across tables from girls. Noel wasn’t a social outcast, he was just in a world of his own making where these kind of women were never available. And why was this? Because Noel was too busy with his snout in the trough.
It would not be like this anymore. He was going to give himself the twin gifts of sobriety and time: much more time. He checked his watch before letting himself into Number 23 St. Jarlath’s Crescent. They would all be safely in bed by now. This was such an earthshaking decision he didn’t want to muddy it all up with conversation.
He was wrong. They were all up, awake and alert at the kitchen table. Apparently his father was going to leave the hotel where he had worked all his life. They appeared to have adopted a tiny King Charles spaniel called Caesar, with enormous eyes and a soulful expression. His mother was planning to work fewer hours at the biscuit factory. His cousin Emily had met most of the people in the neighborhood and become firm friends with them all. And, most alarming of all, they were about to start a campaign to build a statue to some saint who, if he had ever existed, had died fifteen hundred years ago.
They had all been normal when he left the house this morning. What could have happened?
He wasn’t able to manage his usual maneuver of sliding into his room and retrieving a bottle from the box labeled ART SUPPLIES, which contained mainly unused paintbrushes and unopened bottles of gin or wine.
Not, of course, that he was ever going to drink them again.
He had forgotten this. A sudden, heavy gloom settled over him as he sat there trying to comprehend the bizarre changes that were about to take place in his home. There would be no comforting oblivion