Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [32]
“You took the risk, Kevin, and look how it paid off for you.…”
“It was different. I had a rich father and a load of contacts.”
“I have a little savings and I’ll make the contacts,” Lisa said.
“You will in time. Have you an office?”
“I’ll start from home.”
“The very best of luck to you, Lisa,” he said, and she managed to get out before he asked her was there any news of Anton.
Kevin, however, knew all about the place Anton had in Lisa’s life and the reason for her move. He had spent a weekend in Holly’s Hotel in County Wicklow and Miss Holly, forever anxious to give her customers news of one another, mentioned that one of his colleagues, Ms. Kelly, had stayed there the previous night.
“With a very attractive young man. Most knowledgeable about food, he was out in the kitchens talking to the chef.”
“Was his name Anton Moran?” Kevin asked.
“That’s the very man.” Miss Holly clapped her hands. “He even asked us for the recipe for our special orange sauce that the chef makes with Cointreau and walnuts. Normally Chef won’t tell anyone, but he told Mr. Moran because he was going to cook it for his parents.”
“I’ll bet he was,” Kevin said grimly. “And did they share a room?”
Miss Holly sighed. “Of course they did, Kevin. But that’s today for you. If you tried to apply any standards these days you’d be laughed out of business!”
Kevin thought of his niece, who was still in fragile health, and he shivered a little for what might lie ahead for Lisa Kelly, one of the brightest designers he had ever come across.
Lisa wondered were there other homes in Dublin like hers, where the communication was minimal, the conversation limited and the goodwill nonexistent. Her parents talked to each other in heavy sighs and to her hardly at all.
Every Friday, Lisa left her rent on the kitchen dresser. This entitled her to her room and to help herself to tea and coffee. No meals were served to her unless she were to buy them herself.
Lisa wasn’t looking forward to telling her parents that shortly there would be no salary coming in, and therefore the rent would be hard to pay. She was even less enthusiastic about telling them that she would be using her bedroom as an office. In theory, they might offer her the formal dining room, which was never used and would have made a perfectly presentable business surrounding. But she knew not to push things too far.
Her father would say they weren’t made of money. Her mother would shrug and say they didn’t want strangers traipsing in and out of the place. Better do it little by little. Tell them about the job first, then gradually introduce the need to bring clients to the house as they got used to the first situation.
She wished over and over that Anton was less adamant about their living arrangements. He said that she was lovely, the loveliest thing that had ever happened to him. If this was so, why would he not let her come to live with him?
He had these endless excuses: it was a lads’ place—he just had a room there, he didn’t pay for it, instead he cooked for the lads once a week and that was his rent, he couldn’t abuse their hospitality by bringing in someone else. Anyway, it would change the whole atmosphere of the place if a woman were to come into it.
He had sounded a little impatient. Lisa didn’t mention it again. There was no way she could afford a place to live. There were new clothes, picnic meals and the two occasions she pretended to have got hotel vouchers in order to spirit him off for a night of luxury. All this had cost money.
Once or twice she wondered whether Anton might possibly be cheap? A bit careful with money, anyway? But no, he was endearingly honest.
“Lisa, my love, I’m a total parasite at the moment. Every euro I earn doing shifts I have to put away towards the cost of setting the place up. I’m a professional beggar just now, but in time I’ll make it up to you. When you and I are sitting in the restaurant toasting our first Michelin star, then you’ll think it was all worthwhile.”
They sat together in the new kitchen, which