Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [53]
Moira’s brother, Pat, was left to his own devices. He worked around the place, milking the two cows and feeding the hens. He went for a couple of pints in Liscuan village on a Saturday night, so Moira had very little conversation with him. It made her sad to see him dress himself up in a clean shirt and put on hair oil for his weekly outing. Any more than in her own, there was no sign of a love in Pat’s life.
Pat said little about it all, just burned the bottom of one frying pan after another as he cooked bacon and eggs for supper every night. This cramped little farmhouse would never know the laughter of grandchildren.
It was lonely going home to Liscuan but Moira did it with a good grace. She could tell them nothing about her life in Dublin. They would be shocked if they knew she had dealt with an eleven-year-old girl constantly raped by her father and now pregnant, or a battered wife, or a drunken mother who locked her three children in a room while she went to the pub. Nothing like this happened in Liscuan, or so the Tierneys thought.
So Moira kept her thoughts to herself. This particular weekend she was glad of the time. She needed to think something through. Moira Tierney believed that you often had a nose for a situation that wasn’t right, and this was your role in the whole thing. After all that, what those years of training and further years on the job taught you was to recognize when something wasn’t right.
And Moira was worried about Frankie Lynch.
It seemed entirely wrong that Noel Lynch should be given custody of the child. Moira had read the file carefully. He hadn’t even lived with Stella, the baby’s mother. It was only when she was approaching her death and the baby’s birth that she had got in touch with Noel.
It was all highly unsatisfactory.
Admittedly, Noel had managed to build up a support system that looked pretty good on paper. The place was clean and warm and adequately stocked with what was necessary for the baby. The sterilizing for bottles was set up, the baby bath in position. Moira couldn’t fault any of that.
His cousin, a middle-aged, settled person called Emily, had stayed with him for a time, and she still took the baby with her wherever she went. And sometimes the baby stayed with a nurse who had a new baby of her own and was married to a doctor. Very safe environment. And there was an older couple called Signora and Aidan who already looked after their grandchild.
There were other people too. Noel’s parents, who were religious maniacs and were busy drumming up a petition to erect a statue for some saint who died thousands of years ago; then there was a couple called Scarlet: Muttie and Lizzie and Simon and Maud—they were part of the team. And there was a retired doctor who seemed to be called Dr. Hat, of all things, who was supposed to be particularly soothing to infants, apparently. All reliable people, but still …
It was all too bitty, Moira thought: a flimsy daisy chain of people, like the cast of a musical. If one link blew away, everything could crash to the ground. But could she get anyone to support her instinct? Nobody at all. Her immediate superior, who was head of the team, said that she was fussing about nothing—everything seemed to be in place.
She had tried to enlist the American cousin on her side, but to no avail. Emily appeared to have a blind spot about Noel. She said he had made amazing strides in turning his life around so that he could look after his daughter. He was persevering at his job. He was even studying at night to improve his work chances. He had given up alcohol, which he found very hard to do, but he was resolute. It would be a poor reward for all this if the social workers were going to take his child away. He had promised the baby’s mother that the child would not be raised in care.
“Care might be a lot better than he can offer,” Moira had muttered.
“It might, but then again it might not.” Emily was not to be convinced.
Moira had to hold back. But she was watching with very sharp eyes for anything to go out of step.