Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [110]
“Isn’t that wonderful!” Emily cried.
“It is until you think how it’s going to be spent,” Dr. Hat said, drawing a halo around his head with his finger.
Charles and Josie were waiting for her at Number 23; they were fussing over Frankie, who had a bit of a cold and was very fretful, not her usual sunny self. Emily was delighted to see her and lifted her up to examine her. Immediately, the child stopped grizzling.
“She’s definitely grown, so much in three weeks. Isn’t she wonderful?” She gave the baby a hug and was rewarded with a very chatty babble. Emily realized how much she had missed her. This was the child none of them had expected or, to be honest, really wanted, at the start—and look at her now! She was the center of their world.
Dr. Hat had been invited in for a cup of tea and was enjoying a game of picking up Frankie’s teddy bear in order for her to drop it again, and Molly Carroll stopped in to welcome Emily back. Noel rang from work to make sure she really had returned and hadn’t decided to relocate to New York.
Frankie was fine, he said, a runny nose, but otherwise fine. The nurse had said she was thriving. Lisa was away again. She had missed three lectures now and it would be so hard for her to catch up. Oh, yes, he had plenty of help. There was this woman called Faith at his lectures who had five younger brothers at home and had no place to study, so she had come to help Noel three evenings a week.
Faith was delighted with Frankie. She had a lot of experience bringing up younger brothers herself but had never been close to a little girl.
The evening slipped into an easy routine: bath time, bottle, Frankie off to sleep, then revision papers and the Internet notes to help them study. Faith sympathized deeply with Noel having to work in a place like Hall’s: she was in a fairly dead-end office job but had great hopes that the diploma they were working for would make a difference. People in her office respected such things greatly.
She was a cheerful and optimistic woman of twenty-nine; she had dark curly hair, green eyes, a mobile face and a wide smile and she loved walking. She showed Noel a great many places he had never known in his own city. She said she needed to walk a lot because it concentrated her mind. She had suffered a great blow: six years ago, her fiancé had been killed in a car accident just weeks before the wedding day. She had coped by walking alone and being very quiet, but recently she had felt the need to get involved with the world about her. That was one of the reasons she had joined the course at the college, and it was one of the reasons she had adapted so easily to Noel’s demanding life.
She had bought a baby album for Frankie and put in little wisps of the child’s hair, her first baby sock and dozens of photographs.
“Have you any pictures of Stella?” she asked Noel.
“No—none at all.”
Faith didn’t inquire further.
“I could do a drawing of her, maybe,” he said after a while.
“That would be great. Frankie will love that when she gets older.”
Noel looked at her gratefully. She was very good company to have around the place. Perhaps later he might try to sketch her face too.
Lisa and Anton were at a Celtic food celebration in Scotland. They were looking into the possibility of pairing with some similar-type Scottish restaurant where they could do a deal: anyone who spent over a certain sum in Anton’s could get a voucher for half this amount in the Scottish restaurant and vice versa. It would work because it was tapping into an entirely new market, mainly American.
It was Lisa’s idea. She had special cards printed to show how it would work. The Scottish restaurant’s name was a blank at the moment until the deal was done.
Several times Lisa felt rather than saw Anton’s glance of approval, but she knew better now than to look at him for praise. Instead, she concentrated entirely on getting the work done. There would be time later over meals together.
At one of the hotels they had visited the receptionist asked them if they’d like the honeymoon suite. Lisa deliberately said