Tm not quite sure, Mother. That's the truth. I think I know, but I'm not totally certain just yet." Deirdre said she'd have everything ready by noon, and that Ella should collect Derry from the hotel and bring him along early so that he didn't have to come in to a room full of strangers.
He was horrified when he saw that Ella was driving. "Somehow I never thought of myself as trusting my life, what's left of it, to you."
I take deep offence at that. You drove me around New York and I put up with that," she said, avoiding a bus neatly.
"Are there any traffic cops here at all?" he asked through his fingers, hiding his eyes.
"Don't be silly, Derry. It's easy today. You should see a crowded weekday at rush hour. Thing to remember is that no one indicates left and right."
"Including you?" he asked.
"I don't want to confuse them," she grinned. "I'm going to change the habit of a lifetime and have a stiff drink," he said when they got to Deirdre's.
"Thanks be to God," Deirdre said. "Ella said you sipped at one white wine for three hours and I was wondering what we'd do
with you, especially when you meet everyone. Maud and Simon came an hour early to set up their puppet show."
"It's all very different," said Derry King as he sat down and allowed the panic he had felt over Ella's driving to subside.
"Ella says you and your wife were very good to her when she was in New York," Barbara Brady said.
"My former wife Kimberly talks very highly of Ella, and so do I. You have a very bright daughter, Barbara."
"We love to hear that, any parent does. Do you have children, Mr. King?" Ella's father was more formal.
"Oh, call me Derry, please. No, no children. I wish we had. We are an unusual couple in that our separation did not make us enemies. We would have shared children quite amicably. I really do wish Kim well, and she me. I was resisting coming to Ireland for a lot of personal reasons from the past. Kim is delighted that I faced up to it at last."
"And are yon delighted?" Ella's father was sharp, observant.
Tm not sure yet, Tim. It's early days."
"You and she might get back together one day," Barbara suggested.
"Oh, no, that's not going to happen. Kimberly has a new husband. They are very happy together." He spoke simply, as if stating a fact.
Just then Brenda Brennan came in. He recognised her at once from the photographs in the Quentins file he had studied so carefully in New York. They didn't need to be introduced, but talked together easily. She was as he knew already very groomed and in control. But warm as well. She seemed genuinely interested in the things they had talked about, and anxious that his stay in Ireland would be a good one.
"We'll want to keep you here in Dublin all the time, but you'll want to travel, maybe go to the west. It's not a big journey by American standards."
"A perilous one on these roads, I'd say."
"Not at all. Grand, big, wide motorways nowadays. You should have seen it back when," she said proudly. "Where are your people from, by the way?"
"I have no people."
"I'm sorry, I misunderstood. I thought Ella said you had an Irish background, as so many Americans coming here do, you see."
"I do have an Irish background on one side of my family, but no people."
"So you won't be looking for roots then?"
"No way." Derry realised he sounded sharp and short. He had better say something that made him seem less abrupt. "But as it happens, my father's people did come from Dublin."
"Great. I like to hear of Dubs doing well. My husband is from the country, you see, and he says that they are the lads who succeed abroad."
"I wouldn't say my father did well." Derry's eyes were bleak.
Brenda Brennan had had a lifetime of reading faces and moods. "No? Well, his son doesn't look too much like a loser to me," she said with a bright smile. She was rewarded. He smiled back. "Let me introduce you to a couple of people," she said efficiently. "These are Ria and Colm. They run a magnificent restaurant on Tara Road, which you must visit while you're here and drop little cards advertising Quentins on each table!"
"As if she needed it!" Ria was small, dark and curly-haired with a huge smile. Her husband was handsome and thoughtful-looking.
Derry saw Ella looking over to see that he was all right. He raised his glass to her. He felt for a moment as if he belonged here in this easy place where no demands were being made on him. He must beware that feeling. It was probably brought on by the strange, strong drink he had taken to recover from Ella's driving. He would have no more. In fact, this moment he would ask for an orange juice.
Beside him, the small, earnest face of a blonde girl aged ten or eleven appeared. "May I refresh your glass?" she asked.
"That's very good of you . .. um, do I know your name?"
"You might have been told about us. I'm Maud Mitchell. My brother Simon and I are providing the entertainment this after
noon.
"Oh, isn't that splendid. I'm Derry. Derry King."
"And what do we call you? Simon and I, we're always calling people the wrong thing."
"Derry," he said.
"Are you sure? You're much older than we are."
"Yes, but I want to feel younger than I am, you see."
Maud accepted this as normal and suggested that he have a grapefruit juice mixed with a tonic. It was meant to be refreshing. Of course, strictly speaking, it was actually two drinks, but since he was the guest of honour, it would probably be all right.
"Am I the guest of honour?" he asked.
"Yes, because we have to check with you about the entertainment. We can't dance because there isn't a proper floor, only an old carpet. We brought a puppet show but Tom and Cathy think it might be too long. We were going to sing, and with you being an American, we were going to sing awful things like "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and "Come back to Erin", which is what they all loved when we were in Chicago."
"Are they awful things?"
"Well, they wouldn't sing them here, if you know what I mean. And then we were told you didn't want any of that stuff, you weren't a normal American."
"No, no, that's true." Derry was delighted with the child. "And what would they sing here, do you think, given your choice?"
"Well, "Raglan Road", "Carrickfergus". I'll ask Simon. He's better at judging, but the main thing is that we're not to bore you by singing too long. That's what we do sometimes, go on too long. The puppet play is seven minutes, so if we sang two songs, would that be fair?"
"That would be great," he said. "Will you start now?" "You must have very funny parties in America," Maud said. "Of course we can't start now, we have to wait until they're all sitting down with their puddings and cups of coffee." "Ella, I'm desperately sorry about the twins monopolising Mr. King," said Cathy. I've tried to break them up half a dozen times, but he says he's enchanted with them. He won't talk to anyone else."
"Don't worry, he really is enjoying them. I've never seen him so happy." "It's a great party, Dee," Ella said.
"Nicky and Sandy are a little disappointed they can't talk to him more - he's spending all his time with those kids."
"He keeps shunting people away when they try to rescue him," Ella said. "I wish I knew what they were talking about."
"Brenda Brennan can actually lip-read," Deirdre said. Til ask her later." The twins were busy explaining who they were. "You see Cathy over there with the big stomach? It's a baby actually, but that's not the point."
"No," Derry agreed.
"Well, she's the daughter of Muttie and Lizzie, his wife. And we once went to live with Cathy and the husband she had then, who was Neil Mitchell, and he's our cousin. Neil's father and our father are brothers. So that's it!" Maud was triumphant.
"But you live with Muttie?"
"Yes. And his wife Lizzie."
"Good. But why, exactly?"