Tony
Tony
THE FOLLOWING YEAR, FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD JULIET sat her Junior Cert exams, and Ellen’s second book, Promises to Keep , appeared on the shelves. It was reviewed in three newspapers (two were favourable, one lukewarm) and made it to number nine in the charts before slipping again.
One position higher than Mother and Daughter . She was going in the right direction.
A few weeks after publication, Tony invited her to lunch. ‘I’ll come to you,’ he said. ‘Choose your favourite Galway eatery and book us in for Thursday, if that suits you.’
He travelled by train – ‘I’m not fond of long car journeys on my own’ – and Ellen met him at the station and drove them to the restaurant. She wondered if he was going to offer her a new publication deal, although she would have thought anything like that would have to come through Dorothy.
Over slices of blue cheese quiche he told her of the arrival of a first grandchild the week before that had served as great comfort to him and his wife following the recent death of a beloved dog, and he asked her about the new book she’d begun writing.
And finally, over a shared portion of bread and butter pudding – ‘my doctor would be apoplectic if he could see me!’ – he told her the real reason he’d taken her out to lunch.
‘It’s so silly,’ he said, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. ‘I mean look at me, in my prime, a mere boy of seventy, and they’re telling me I must stop driving, and give up work, and basically sit under an umbrella in the garden for the rest of my days.’
He appeared to be in perfect health, clear-eyed and rosy-cheeked and well able to eat. Today’s bow tie was maroon, a matching handkerchief slotted into his jacket’s top pocket.
‘Are you sick?’
‘Not in the least. They’ve just found some complicated heart thing – I can’t even remember the name – that apparently makes any kind of stress out of the question, so Judy has hidden my car keys and is insisting I tender my resignation at work, because she doesn’t fancy being a widow. My father dropped dead aged fifty-nine, and everyone’s afraid I’ll follow in his footsteps, even though I’ve outrun him already by eleven years.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Ellen said. By this point, she’d confided in him about Leo, and about her father’s departure and subsequent reappearance. He’d become her friend as much as her editor. ‘I hope you’ll be OK.’
He smiled. It took years off him, so full of merry, twinkle-eyed joy. ‘Oh, I intend to. I’m determined to prove them all wrong. Sorry we won’t be a team any more, but I’ll make sure my replacement treats you well.’
In the middle of September the Junior Cert results came out, and Ellen was relieved when Juliet’s were satisfactory. Her older daughter had grown up artistic and dreamy, every bit as much a bookworm as Ellen, and with the same fondness for theatre. The two of them went regularly to plays, leaving Grace in the care of seventeen-year-old Angie from a few doors down.
‘I don’t need a babysitter,’ Grace would complain every time – poor Angie – but Ellen thought eleven too young to be left alone. Grace continued to be the unpredictable one, the discontented and mulish one, given to sudden bursts of rage and slamming of doors. The brighter one too, flying through homework while Juliet sat with head bent for far longer.
On the evening of the exam results, Ellen and Juliet sat on the patio after Grace had gone to bed, Juliet having shown little interest in a special disco at the school. At fifteen she had yet to bring home a boyfriend, or even speak of one. The light was waning, but the air was heady with the last of Frances’ roses that bloomed faithfully every year.
‘Still thinking about art college?’ Ellen asked.
Juliet nodded. ‘Graphic design. I like the idea of illustration, maybe for children’s books, or graphic novels. I’d love to study in Dublin, at the National College of Art and Design, if I could get in – and maybe I could stay with Granddad.’
She’d been thinking about it – and much as Ellen would hate to see her leaving home, moving in with her grandfather made a lot of sense. When Juliet left school in two years he would be eighty-one, and Ellen liked the idea of someone in the house with him at night. It would also give Juliet a secure place to stay.
‘Let’s find out about entry requirements, and we’ll talk to Granddad nearer the time. Of course I’d miss you madly.’
Juliet smiled. ‘I’d be back for all the holidays.’
‘Well, I should hope so.’
They would grow up and leave her. They would begin lives without her, as she had done aged twenty. She remembered the heady excitement of boarding the Galway bus, the thrilling thought that at last she was free. Never once had she considered her mother, without a partner as Ellen was now. Never once had she wondered how she might be feeling at her elder daughter’s departure, and now it would soon be Ellen’s turn to be left behind.
She shook her gloomy thoughts away. Juliet would be back after college, and Grace was going nowhere, not for years – and when it eventually happened she would deal with it, and life would go on.