Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [143]
“Let’s go out in a blaze of glory for your last week.”
Lisa made the spicy chicken sandwiches and in between times texted Maud and Simon to look for a replacement. One of their friends would be able to do it without any problem. They had found somebody in a couple of hours.
“Send her up to me and I’ll train her in,” Lisa suggested.
The girl was called Tracey. She was eager-looking but covered in tattoos.
Tactfully, Lisa offered her a shirt.
“We wear these here buttoned at the wrist,” she said. “Hugo is very insistent about that.”
“Bit of an old fuddy-duddy, is he?” Tracey asked.
“Bit of a young fuddy-duddy; definitely a looker,” she said.
Tracey brightened. This job might have hidden benefits.
· · ·
Lisa was amazed at how quickly she managed to adapt to a life that didn’t center around Anton’s. Not that she didn’t miss it; several times a day she wondered what they might all be doing and whether Anton would use any more of her ideas to beat the downturn in business. But there was plenty to occupy her, and on most fronts it was going very well.
Lizzie found the days endless. The savage, raw pain of grief was now giving way to a gnawing ache, and the void in her life was threatening to consume her.
“I’m thinking of getting a little job,” she confided to the twins.
“What work would you do, Lizzie?” Simon asked.
“Anything, really. I used to clean houses.”
“You’d be too tired for that nowadays,” Simon said practically.
“You could work at managing something, Lizzie,” Maud suggested.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’d be afraid of the responsibility.”
“Would you like to work in Marco’s restaurant? Well, his father’s restaurant. They’re looking for someone to come in part-time to supervise sending the laundry out and take in the cheese delivery and to sort yesterday’s tips out from the credit card receipts. You could do that, couldn’t you?”
“Well, I might be able to, but Ennio would never give me a big responsible job like that,” Lizzie said anxiously.
“Of course he would,” Simon said loyally.
“You’re family, Lizzie,” said Maud, looking down with pleasure at her engagement ring.
Ania’s baby was due in a couple of months and there was great excitement in the heart clinic, mainly because Ania’s period of bed rest was over and she was back at work, but under constant supervision.
“I feel much safer here,” she said piteously, so they let her stay, even though everyone jumped when she took a deep breath or reached up to take a file out of a cabinet.
Clara Casey said that Ania had been so upset by her miscarriage that they must all be on hand to help her the moment there was the remotest sign of the baby. Clara knew the girl was apprehensive—far from home, from her mother and sisters. Her husband, Carl, was, if possible, even more excited than Ania. He took to hanging around the clinic himself in case there should be any news.
Clara was very tolerant. “Oh, work round him,” she told the others. “The poor boy is distracted in case anything goes wrong this time.”
Clara herself was fairly distracted by matters on the home front: Frank Ennis and his son. The relationship had been prickly from the start, and hadn’t improved much during the boy’s visit. Des had gone back to Australia and they kept in touch from time to time. Not often enough for Frank, who put great effort into writing weekly e-mails to the boy.
“You’d think he’d do more than send a postcard of the Barrier Reef,” Frank grumbled.
“Look, be grateful for what you get. My daughter Adi only sends a card too. I don’t know where she is and what she’s doing. It’s just the way things are.”
Then came the word they had not expected.
I find myself thinking a lot about Ireland these days. I know I was rough on you and didn’t really believe you when you said you didn’t know what your family had done, but it took time to get my head around it all. Perhaps we should have another go. I was thinking of spending a year there, if that wouldn’t put you out. I’ve been in negotiations about jobs and apparently my degree