Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [40]
“I don’t want to be downbeat, but we all feel this in the early days,” Malachy warned him.
“It’s not really early days. I haven’t had a drink for twenty-one days,” Noel said proudly.
“Fair play to you, but I am four years dry and yet if something went seriously wrong in my life I know only too well where I would want to find a solution. It would solve everything for a couple of hours and then I’d have to start all over again … as hard as the first time, only worse.…”
For Brian Flynn the days flew by as well. He adapted perfectly to his new living quarters and began to think that he had always lived over a busy hair salon. Garry cut his hair for him and tamed the red-gray thatch into a reasonable shape. They said he was better than any security firm and that the fact that he lived there was a deterrent to intruders.
He left each morning for the immigrant center where he worked; as he passed through the salon he encountered many ladies in varying degrees of disarray and marveled to himself how they endured so much in the cause of beauty. He would greet them pleasantly, and Katie always introduced him as the Reverend Lodger Upstairs.
“You could hear confessions here, Brian, but I think you’d be electrified by what they’d tell you,” Katie said cheerfully.
She had discovered that even in the middle of a recession, women were more anxious than ever to have their hair done. It kept them sane, somehow, and feeling in control.
· · ·
For Lisa Kelly the time crawled by.
She was finding it difficult to get decisions made about her designs for Anton’s restaurant, as a decision meant money being spent. Although the restaurant was open and full to bursting every night, there was still no verdict on whether to use her new logos and style on the tableware. Instead, she was concentrating on her course-work and giving Noel a hand.
Noel had undergone some amazing conversion; when Lisa heard about his plan to take on a baby, she thought it was a fantasy. She had felt sure he would never be able to cope with a job, a college course and a newborn: it was too much to ask from one person, especially someone who was weak and shy like Noel. However, she was beginning to change her mind.
Noel had surprised her, and in a way she almost envied him. He was so dedicated to all that he was doing. Everything was new for him. He had a whole new life ahead, while Lisa felt that it was forever more of the same. Of course it was all still theoretical; the baby wasn’t even born yet. But he was preparing as much as he could to be a father. His notes always had lists scribbled in the margins: nappy-rash cream, baby wipes, they would say. Four bottles, bottle brush, nipples, steriliser …
Her parents were still living in their icy, uncaring way, sharing a roof but not a bedroom, not a dining table, not any leisure time. They had no interest in Lisa or her life, any more than they cared how Katie fared with Garry in the salon. It was just casual indifference, not amazing hostility, that existed between them as a couple. One had only to come into a room for the other to leave it.
Lisa had never been able to pin Anton down: there was always this conference and that sales meeting and this television appearance and that radio interview. She had never seen him alone. The pictures of her and Anton together had given way to shots of him with any number of beautiful girls; though she would have heard if he had any new real girlfriend. It would have been in the Sunday papers. That was the way Anton attracted publicity—he gave free drinks to columnists and photographers and they always snapped him with several beautiful women and gave the impression that he was busy making up his mind among them all.
And it wasn’t as if he had abandoned her or was ignoring her, Lisa reminded herself. A day didn’t pass without a text message from Anton. Life was so busy, he would text. They had a rock band in last night, they were going to do a society wedding, a charity auction, a new tasting menu, a week of Breton specialties.