Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [23]
“We try to encourage each other to cut it out completely. Are you aware of that?”
“Yes, if that were possible, I would be happy to try.”
“My name is Malachy. Come on in,” the man said. “We’re about to begin.”
Later in the day Noel had to do his third confrontation.
Emily had made an appointment for him with a college admissions supervisor. He was going to sign up for a business diploma, which included marketing and finance, sales and advertising. The fees, which would have been well beyond him, were going to be paid by Emily. She said it was an interest-free loan. He would repay it when he could.
She had assured him that this was exactly what she wanted to do with her savings. She saw it as an investment. One day when he was a rich, successful man he would always remember her with gratitude and look after her in her old age.
The admissions supervisor confirmed that the fees had been paid and that the lectures would start the following week. Apart from the lectures, Noel would be expected to study on his own for at least twelve hours a week.
“Are you married?” the supervisor asked.
“No, indeed,” and then almost as an afterthought Noel said, “but I’ll be having a baby in a couple of weeks.”
“Congratulations, but you had better get a good bit of the groundwork in before the child arrives,” said the admissions supervisor, a man who seemed to know what he was talking about.
That evening at supper Josie was eager to discuss the thrift shop and its possible opening date. She was excited and alive.
Charles was in high good form too. He wasn’t going to have to give Caesar back to Mrs. Monty, he was going to have this big celebration at the hotel, he had more plans for dog walking and dog exercising and he had been to a local kennel.
But before the conversation could go down either route—thrift shop or dog walking—Emily spoke firmly.
“Noel has something important to talk to us about, perhaps before we make any more plans.”
Noel looked around him, trapped.
He had known that this was coming. Emily said they could not live in a shadowy world of lies and deception.
Still, he had to tell his parents that they were about to become grandparents, there was no marriage included in the plans and he would be moving into a place of his own.
It was not news he was going to find easy to break. Emily had suggested that he might pause before using the same opportunity to tell them that he was joining Alcoholics Anonymous and that he was registering as a student at the college.
She wondered whether it might not be too much for them.
But when he began his tale, sparing nothing but telling it all as it had unfolded, he felt it was easier and more fair to tell them everything.
He went through it as if he were talking about someone else, and he never once caught their eye as the story went on.
First he told of the message from the hospital, his two meetings with Stella, and her news—which he had refused to believe at first but realized must be true; then he told of his intention to meet the social worker and plan for the future of the baby girl, whose birth would also involve her mother’s death.
He told them how he had tried to give up drinking on his own and had not succeeded, that he now had a sponsor in AA called Malachy and would attend a meeting every day.
He told them that his job in Hall’s had been depressing and that he was constantly passed over while younger and less experienced staff were appreciated because they had diplomas or degrees.
At this point he realized his parents had been very silent, so he raised his eyes to look at them.
Their faces were frozen with horror at the story he was telling.
Everything they had feared might happen in a godless world had happened.
Their son had enjoyed sex outside marriage and a child had resulted and he was admitting a dependency on alcohol even to the point of getting help from Alcoholics Anonymous!
But he would not be put off. He struggled on with the explanations and his plans to get