Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [153]
“Never. That part of life is over for me. As far as they’re all concerned I’m dead. I’d prefer it that way,” he said.
It made Moira feel a little bit, but not entirely, better. She was being unprofessional, and when all was said and done she had nothing left but her profession. Had she fallen down on that too?
She also regretted her outburst to Lisa when she questioned Noel’s paternity of Frankie. It had been unforgivable. Fortunately, he hadn’t heard it, or at any rate he was polite when she talked to him, which was the same thing.
Noel couldn’t sleep, so he got up and went to the sitting room. He got a piece of paper and made a list of the reasons that he was obviously Frankie’s father and another list of reasons that he might not be. As usual, he came to no conclusion. He loved that child so much—she must be his daughter.
And yet he couldn’t sleep. There was only one thing to do.
He would get a DNA test.
He would arrange it the next day. He tore up the sheets of paper into tiny pieces.
That was all there was to it.
Noel didn’t want to approach either Declan or Dr. Hat about the DNA test. He had asked at the AA meeting if anyone knew how it was done. He made it seem like a casual inquiry for a friend. As always, the assembly was able to find an answer. You went to a doctor, who took a swab of your cheek and sent it to a laboratory—couldn’t be more simple.
Yes, all very well, but Noel didn’t want Declan to know his doubts. He couldn’t ask Hat either, since Hat was family now that he had married Emily. So it would have to be someone totally new.
He wondered what advice his cousin Emily would give him. She would say, “Be ruthlessly honest and do it quickly.” There was no arguing with that.
He looked up a doctor on the other side of the city. It was a woman doctor, who was practical and to the point.
“It will cost you to have this test done. We have to pay the lab.”
“Sure, I know that,” Noel agreed.
“I mean, it’s not just a whim or a silly row with your partner or anything?”
“It’s nothing like that. I just need to know.”
“And if it turns out that you are not the child’s father?”
“I will make up my mind what to do then.”
“You have to be prepared to hear something you don’t want to hear,” she persisted.
“I can’t settle until I know,” he said simply.
And after that it was straightforward. He brought Frankie in and swabs were taken. He would know for sure in three weeks.
Even though he had been told that it would take three weeks, Noel watched the post every day. The doctor had promised to let him have the results as soon as she got them. They had agreed that phones could be unreliable or too public.
Better to send it in a letter.
Noel examined every envelope that arrived, but there was nothing.
Lisa went to London and came back thrilled with a job offer.
He had never felt time moving so slowly. The days in Hall’s were endless. His need for a drink after each day was so acute that he went to an AA meeting almost every evening. Why could it take so long to match up bits of tissue or whatever DNA was?
He would look at Frankie sometimes and feel covered in shame that he was doing this to her—that he wanted so much to know.
Noel had a long history of being in denial. When he was drinking, he denied the possibility that anyone would ever discover this at work. When he stopped drinking he banished all thoughts of comfortable bars from his head and memory. Mainly it worked for him, but not always.
It was the same now. He banished the possibility that Frankie might not be his child. He just would not think what he would do then. The fact that Stella might have lied to him or been mistaken and the heartbreaking possibility that Frankie might not be his little girl but somebody else’s—it was too big to think about. It had to be left out of his conscious mind.
Once he knew one way or the other, it would be easier. This was the worst bit.
· · ·
The letter arrived at Chestnut Court.
Lisa left it on the table as she went out; in the silent flat Noel poured himself another cup of