Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [26]
Moira didn’t seem as interested as she might have been. She was looking at Noel and seemed to spot the surprise on his face.
“What do you think of this as a place to move to?” she asked him directly.
Stella and Emily waited anxiously.
“As Emily said, we have talked through so many ideas and this one seems to be the most suitable so far.”
Moira nodded as if in agreement, and if she heard the breath of relief from the two women, she gave no sign.
There were questions then about the rent that would be paid and the babysitting support that would be available, seeing that Noel would be at work all day.
And soon it was over.
Emily made one last statement to show how reliable her cousin Noel was.
“I don’t know whether you realize that Noel is very anxious to marry Stella. He has proposed to her, but Stella would prefer not to. This is the attitude of a committed person, someone who would be reliable and responsible.”
“As I said, Ms. Lynch, there are some formalities that have to be gone through. I will have to talk about it with my team and then the last word will be with the supervisor.”
“But the first and most influential word will be from you, Moira,” Emily said.
Moira gave one of her brisk little nods and was gone.
Stella waited till she was out of the ward before she started to celebrate. With a flick of her wrist she pulled the curtains and produced the cigarettes.
“Well done to the pair of you,” she said, looking from Noel to Emily and back. “We have Madam Moira on the run!”
“We still have a way to go,” Emily said, and they settled down to discuss further strategies.
And they continued to do this for the next few weeks. Every aspect of the effort to turn Noel into a father was discussed.
Josie and Charles were introduced to Stella and, after some awkward shuffling at the start, they found an astonishing amount of common ground. Both Noel’s parents and Stella herself seemed entirely convinced that shortly Stella would be going to a better place. There was no pretense that she might recover.
Josie talked wistfully of Stella going to meet Our Lord fairly soon and Charles said that if Stella were to meet St. Jarlath, she could pass on the news that the statue would indeed be erected but it might take a little longer than they had once believed possible. They had helped by paying a deposit on the flat in Chestnut Court. St. Jarlath’s image might have to wait a little, but it would happen.
“Wouldn’t he be able to see that already?” Stella asked.
“Yes, I imagine he would,” Charles agreed. “But it would be no harm to give him a personal message.”
Noel felt ashamed that his parents took this whole idea of an afterlife so casually. They really and truly saw heaven as some kind of a big park where they would meet everyone.
Stella rolled her eyes a bit at the whole notion, but she didn’t seem put out by it either. She was game to take a message to any old saint just to keep the show on the road.
But they also made plans on a more practical level. Chestnut Court was only a seven-minute walk from St. Jarlath’s Crescent. Noel could wheel the baby around to his parents’ home before work each morning; Josie and Charles would look after Frankie until lunchtime. Then she would go for the afternoon either to Molly Carroll’s house or to this couple called Aidan and Signora, who looked after their grandchild; to Dr. Hat, who had retired recently and found time hanging heavy on his hands; or to Muttie and Lizzie Scarlet, who, quite apart from their own children, had raised twins who were no blood relations to them at all.
The three evenings a week when Noel would be at his evening classes would be covered as well. For a time Emily would go to the new apartment in Chestnut Court and do her paperwork. Noel would return after his lectures and