Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [92]
“No, I’m sorry, Des,” said Frank. “I’m sorry for all those years.…”
Anton murmured that he would come back in a few moments to take their order. He would never know what was going on there, but they seemed to have turned a corner. At least they were talking, and soon they were ordering food. He looked over again and they were raising a glass of Hunter Valley Chardonnay to each other. That was a relief. As soon as he had mentioned the boy being the man’s son, Anton had felt a twinge of anxiety.
Possibly he had been indiscreet? But no, it seemed to be working fine. Anton breathed deeply and went back into the kitchen. Imagine—there were some people who believed that running a restaurant was all to do with serving food!
That was only a very small part of it, Anton thought.
Chapter Nine
Moira had an appointment with Frank Ennis. It was her quarterly report. She had to show the manager her case list and explain the work she had done that was costing the hospital a day and a half’s wages.
Miss Gorman, his fearsome secretary, asked Moira to take a seat and wait. Today she was, if possible, more fearsome still.
“Is Mr. Ennis very busy?” Moira inquired politely.
“They never leave him alone, pulling him this way and that.” Miss Gorman looked protective and angry. Maybe she fancied him and was annoyed that he had taken up with Dr. Casey.
“He always seems so much in control,” Moira murmured.
“Oh, no, he’s at their beck and call all day. It’s totally disrupting his schedule.”
“Who is doing this disrupting?” Moira was interested. She liked stories of confrontation.
Miss Gorman was vague. “Oh, people, you know. Fussing people saying it’s a personal matter. It’s so distracting for poor Mr. Ennis.”
She definitely fancied him, Moira thought, sighing over the way people wasted their lives over love. Look at that Lisa Kelly, who thought she was the girlfriend of Anton Moran despite all the women that he paraded around the place. Look at that silly girl in her own social worker team who had refused promotion because her plodding boyfriend might have felt inadequate.
Look at poor Miss Gorman, sitting here fuming because these people, whoever they were, were actually daring to ring Frank Ennis saying that it was personal. She sighed again and settled down to wait.
Frank Ennis was much more cheerful than on earlier visits. He checked her figures and report carefully.
“You certainly seem to be taking a load off the main hospital … the real hospital,” he said.
“I think you’ll find that the heart clinic thinks of itself very much as the real hospital,” Moira corrected him.
“Which is why I wouldn’t use such an expression in front of them. Credit me with some intelligence, Ms. Tierney.”
“It’s very well run, I must say.”
“Well, yes, they do deliver a service. I give them that much, but it’s like a mothers’ meeting in there—this one is having a baby, that one is getting engaged, the other one is getting married. It’s like a gossip column in a cheap newspaper.”
“I couldn’t agree with you less.” Moira was cold. “These are professional women; they know their subject and they do their job well. They reassure the patients and teach them to manage their own condition. I don’t see that as being in any way like a gossip column or a mothers’ meeting.”
“But I thought I could talk to you about it. I thought you were my eyes and ears. My spy in there …”
“You suggested that, certainly, but I never accepted the role.”
“That’s true, you didn’t. I suppose you’ve been sucked into it like everyone else.”
“I doubt it, Mr. Ennis. I’m not easily sucked into things. Shall I leave this report with you?”
“Have I annoyed you in any way, Ms. Tierney?” Frank Ennis asked.
“No, not at all, Mr. Ennis. You have your job to do, I have mine. It’s a matter of mutual respect. Why do you think you might have annoyed me?”
“Because apparently that’s what I do, Ms. Tierney, annoy people, and you look disapproving, as if you didn’t like what you saw.”
Several people had said that to Moira, but usually in the heat of the moment when