Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [12]
He kept hearing reports from his old parish in Rossmore. His mother, who was already fairly confused and in a home for the elderly, was thought to have seen a vision, but it turned out she was talking about the television, and everyone in the old people’s home was greatly disappointed.
He found himself increasingly brooding about the meaning of life now that he had to see so much of the end of life in St. Brigid’s. Look at that poor girl Stella who seemed to like him just because he had arranged for a hairdresser to come in and visit her. She was pregnant as well as dying. She had lived a short and vaguely unsatisfactory life but then she told him that almost everyone else did as well. She seemed not even marginally interested in preparing to meet her Maker, and Father Flynn was always very firm about this; unless the patients brought the matter up themselves, it wasn’t mentioned. They knew what his job description was, for heaven’s sake. If they wanted intervention made, prayers said or sins forgiven, then he would do that; otherwise he wouldn’t mention the topic.
He and Stella had had many good conversations about single-malt whiskey, about the quarterfinals in the soccer World Cup, about the unequal division of wealth in the world. She said that she had one more thing to do before she was off to the next world, whatever it might bring. Just one thing. But she had a sort of hope that it was all going to work out all right. And could Father Flynn kindly ask that nice hairdresser to come again fairly soon? She needed to look well when she did this one last thing.
Father Flynn paced his small apartment with the soccer posters nailed to the wall to cover the damp patches. Maybe he would ask Stella did she know anywhere for him to live. It might be tactless since he was going to live and she wasn’t, but it would be better than looking into her ravaged face and haunted eyes and trying to make sense of it all.
In St. Jarlath’s Crescent, Josie and Charles Lynch whispered long and happily into the night. Imagine—this time last night they hadn’t even met Emily and now their lives had been turned right around. They had a dog, they had a lodger and, for the first time in months, Noel had sat and talked to them. They had begun a campaign to have St. Jarlath recognized properly.
Things were better on every front.
And, amazingly, things continued well on every front.
A message came to the hotel from a psychiatric hospital saying that Caesar’s mother, Mrs. Monty, was unavoidably detained there and that she hoped Caesar was being adequately looked after. The hotel manager, bewildered by this, was relieved to know that the matter was all in hand and somewhat embarrassed to learn that the rescuer had been that old porter he had just made redundant. Charles Lynch seemed to bear him no ill will but let slip the fact that he was looking forward to some kind of retirement ceremony. The manager made a note to remind himself or someone to organize something for the fellow.
At the biscuit factory they were surprised to hear that Josie was going to work part-time and raise money for a statue to St. Jarlath. Most of the others who worked with her were desperate to hold on to their jobs at any cost.
“We’ll have to give you a great sendoff when you finally retire, Josie,” one of the women said.
“I’d really prefer a contribution to the St. Jarlath’s statue fund,” Josie said. And there was a silence not normally known in the biscuit factory.
· · ·
Noel Lynch found the days endless in Hall’s Builders’ Merchants. The mornings were hard to endure without any alcohol. The nice fuzzy afternoons were gone and replaced now by hours of mind-numbing checking of delivery dockets against sales slips. His only pleasure was leaving a glass of mineral water on his desk and watching from the distance as Mr. Hall either smelled it or tasted it.
Noel could see only too well that his job could easily be done by a not-very-bright twelve-year-old. It was hard to know how the company had survived as long