Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [28]
Their mother, Di, had been very scornful about it all. “Touching people’s dirty heads!” she had exclaimed in horror.
Their father, Jack Kelly, barely commented on Katie’s career, any more than he had on Lisa’s work.
Katie had begged Lisa to leave home. “It’s not like that out in the real world, not awful silences like Mum and Dad have. Other people don’t shrug at each other the way they do, they talk.”
But Lisa had waved this away. Katie had always been oversensitive about the atmosphere at home. When Katie went out to friends’ houses, she returned wistfully talking about happy meals at kitchen tables, places where mothers and fathers talked and laughed and argued with their children and their friends. Not like their home, where meals were eaten in silence and accompanied by a series of shrugs. And anyway, Katie had always been easily affected by people’s moods. Lisa was different. If Mum was distant, then let her be distant. If Dad was secretive, then what of it? It was just his way.
Dad worked in a bank, where, apparently, he had been passed over for promotion; he didn’t know the right people. No wonder he was withdrawn and didn’t want to make idle chitchat. Lisa could never interest him in anything she did; if ever she showed him one of her drawings from school, he’d shrug, as if to say, “So what?”
Her mother was discontented, but she had reason to be. She worked in a very upmarket boutique, where rich, middle-aged women went to buy several outfits a year. She herself would have looked well in those kinds of clothes, but she could never have afforded them; so instead she helped to fit plumper women into them and arranged for seams to be let out and for zip fasteners to be lengthened. Even with a very generous staff discount, the clothes were way out of her league. No wonder she looked at Dad with disappointment. When she had married him at the age of eighteen he had looked like a man who was going somewhere. Now he went nowhere except to work every morning.
Lisa went to her office and worked hard all day. She had lunch with colleagues at places that were high in style and low in calories. But it was at a private lunch for a client that Lisa met Anton Moran: it was one of those moments that was frozen forever in her mind.
Lisa saw this man crossing the room, pausing at each table and talking easily with everyone. He was slight and wore his hair quite long. He looked confident and pleasant without being arrogant.
“Who’s he?” she gasped to Miranda, who knew everyone.
“Oh, that’s Anton Moran. He’s the chef. He’s been here for a year, but he’s leaving soon. Going to open his own place, apparently. He’ll do well.”
“He’s gorgeous,” Lisa said.
“Get to the end of the line!” Miranda laughed. “There’s a list as long as my arm waiting for Anton.”
Lisa could see why. Anton had style like she had never seen before. He didn’t hurry, yet he moved on from table to table. Soon he was at theirs.
“The lovely Miranda!” he exclaimed.
“The even lovelier Anton!” Miranda said archly. “This is my friend Lisa Kelly.”
“Well, hello, Lisa,” he said, as if he had been waiting all his life to meet her.
“How do you do?” Lisa said and felt awkward. Normally she knew what to say, but not this time.
“I’ll be opening my own place shortly,” Anton said. “Tonight is my last night here. I’m going round giving my cell phone number to everyone and I’ll expect you all to be there. No excuses now.” He handed a card to Miranda and then gave one to Lisa.
“Give me a couple of weeks and I’ll give you the details. They’ll all know I must be doing something right if you two gorgeous girls turn up there,