And their colleagues in Firefly Films, Sandy and Nick. Utterly dedicated to their job.
Were there people like that around when he was young, full of courage and determination? Quentin wondered. There was no one to ask. Brother Rooney wasn't there to visit any more. He had gone to some big garden in the sky.
There were Tom and Cathy, who ran a catering service. Sometimes they did outside catering for the restaurant's clients, so they were in and out of the place a lot. They were expecting a baby, and there was a lot of kissing and hugging and wishing them good luck about that from time to time.
Quentin saw the sad look on Brenda's face one day when they had gone.
"Was that something you would have liked?" he asked gently.
"Oh yes, so much. And Patrick would have been a wonderful father."
"Still, there have been compensations?" he asked hopefully.
"This restaurant is our baby," Brenda said, looking around the place very proudly.
He smiled and suddenly she realised that perhaps she had been presumptuous. I didn't mean to suggest anything except that we have loved working here," she said, flustered.
"Did you wonder why I came back, Brenda?" Quentin asked her gently.
"Why shouldn't you come back to see how well it's all going? I told you we wanted to show off."
Her eyes were too bright. She knew all right.
"I'm dying, Brenda," he said. I brought those dates and nuts over to the booth like you asked me," Blouse Brennan explained to his brother. "But Brenda and Quentin were crying, so I decided not to interrupt them," he said.
"Crying?" Patrick was surprised.
"Yes, Brenda was using the starched napkin to wipe her face."
"That's serious crying. You were right not to disturb them," Patrick said. "Any other dramas out there?"
I was afraid to look," Blouse admitted. "It's safer in the kitchen." And he went back to the vegetables with Signora, the two of them chopping contentedly and expertly. It was good to be far away from All Human Life, which seemed to be fairly volatile out in the dining room. "What about your friend, Katar?" Brenda asked, unaware of her tear-stained face.
"He went before me, last year," Quentin said. "Thank you for remembering his name."
"Who would forget him? He was charming and so full of life . .. to say something which is foolish, because it's no longer true."
"He liked it here. We sat at this table and Katar said that if the poor and the sick could only eat great food like this, they would surely get well ... or at any rate, they would die happy."
They laughed at the memory of the handsome laughing Moroccan boy, unafraid to face death, full of optimistic philosophy to the end.
"Well, that's what you could do, Quentin. Sell this place as a going concern and with the money you get set up a kind of charity ... very high-quality food for those who would not have been able to afford it."
"I can't sell this from over your heads . .. you and Patrick have made it what it is," Quentin protested.
"We'll get employed, our name is good ..."
"But it's like your baby, you said."
"There are other babies, Quentin."
"But Blouse and Signora and everyone ..."
"Will also survive."
"Isn't there enough in the business to do both .. . keep this place going and the other?"
"Of course there could be, do you ever read those accountants" reports? They are always saying you should expand ... but you will want money for medication, for clinics, for whatever .. ."
"No, no, I will go back to the house where Katar and I lived, that is best." And his face looked much more peaceful as they talked about practical things. Blouse brought them dates, honey and nuts. Figures were written down on paper.
"And this film documentary, do you not want to be any part of it?" Brenda asked.
He shook his head gently. He wanted nothing at all to do with it but was happy if it went ahead.
Now he wanted her to listen carefully.
Quentin Barry was selling his enterprise to Brenda and Patrick
Brennan, who would pay him a small, once-only payment, and then a share of their profits would be paid every year to a company called The Kindness of Katar. They would cook gourmet food for those who were terminally ill.
"We'll need a lawyer," he said. I don't want my father's stuffy old friends."
"I know the very girl. Maggie Nolan. She was partly the cause of our coming here. It would be a nice way of rounding it off."
He loved the story of Maggie's eager family and wiped his eyes. "Katar said I cried very easily. If he could see me now," he said.
At the end of the week, Maggie and her colleagues had been in and out of the private dining booth several times and everything was signed.
Quentin Barry had bought his mother an elegant hat and told her that she had the finest cheekbones in Dublin. He had taken his father for a long walk out by the sea and commented on the elegant boats and the good state of the Irish economy. He held their hands a little longer than usual when he said goodbye, but not so much longer that they might get suspicious.
And when he left the restaurant, he hugged Brenda and Patrick as if he never wanted to get into the taxi. If anyone was close enough, they would have heard him say that he too had a baby and that he was leaving it in good hands.
PART IV
Chapter Twelve.
Tim and Barbara Brady had soup and toast for a late lunch, as they did most days. "She didn't go to bed at all?" Barbara asked.
"Apparently not. She made a few calls on her mobile. Then she went out."
"And did you talk about anything . . . you know?"
"No, Barbara, I said nothing about anything that was in a private letter for her, one which we were never meant to have read."
"I'm not sure, it was open . .."
"Anyway, we didn't discuss anything, nor, as I told you, will I bring the matter up. And she called back to ask us to go to a brunch at Deirdre's on Sunday, so that we can meet the millionaire."
"Good, that's something," Barbara said.
"I don't know," Tim Brady said gloomily. I've had it up to here with millionaires, if you must know." "Apparently, your friend Ella was in America, and it didn't take her long to pick up a sugar daddy there," Frank said to his wife Nuala.
I don't know what you're talking about."
"And you sure don't know much about your so-called friends. They were spotted getting off the New York flight and into a limo this morning. So can you get on to her sharpish?"
"I can't, Frank."
"Why not? You're always bleating on about what friends the two of you are."
"Not since you said I shouldn't be friends with her any more. She didn't take well to that."
"Call her sometime today, Nuala," Frank said firmly.
"He's dead, what does it matter now?"
"Today, Nuala." Ella was early for their meeting, but Derry was there already waiting for her in the bar. It had only been ten hours, yet it seemed much longer since they had been together.
"I had an odd, restless day, how about you?"
"Odd and restless. That covers it," he agreed.
"Did you sleep?"
"Not a bit. And you?"
"Not a wink. So I don't think we should go to Quentins tonight. We're both so jet-lagged we might fall asleep the moment we got in the door."
"So what would you suggest?" He was agreeable to whatever she came up with.
But she felt at a loss. If she still had her own flat, she could have made him supper. "Do you know, Derry, I haven't any idea," she said honestly.
"Great pair of movie-makers we are," he laughed. "We spent day and night in New York talking about this city of Dublin and how to tell its story, and now that we're here, we don't even know where to begin."