Maeve Binchy - Quentins

"She's got a lovely smile," said Blouse.

"She looks healthy enough," his father admitted grudgingly.

"Not a girl to settle in the land, I'd say," his mother complained.

"Well, that's also for the best then, since Brenda and I haven't a notion of running this place, Blouse will be in charge here in the fullness of time."

Patrick spoke very definitely.

The parents, as was their custom, said nothing at all.

And that was the day Blouse got his great bout of confidence. He was fourteen years old, but one day he would be a landowner. That made him superior to nearly everyone else in his class at school. He made the mistake of telling Horse Harris who was a bully, and Horse mocked him and pushed him around. "Squire Blouse", he kept calling him.

Patrick made one appearance in the schoolyard and rearranged the nose of Horse Harris. Nothing more was said, the word "Squire" was never mentioned again.

One day Patrick bought Blouse a pint and said that when he and Brenda married, he would like Blouse to be their best man.

"Imagine, you a married man with a home of your own," Blouse said.

"You're always welcome to come and see us, stay the night, even a weekend."

"I know, but I wouldn't have much call going to Dublin. What would a fellow called Blouse be doing in a big city?" he asked.

Patrick brought Brenda home for a visit.

Very good-looking, Blouse thought, and confident. Not like people round here. She was very polite to his mother and father, helped with the washing up, and didn't mind the big hairy dog pawing her smart skirt.

She explained to Blouse and Patrick's mother that the wedding would be performed by her uncle who was a priest, and she reassured their father that it would be a very small affair, only twenty people at the most. They were going to have a beautiful wedding cake and bottles of wine.

Wouldn't people think it off not to have plates of cold chicken and ham? Blouse's mother wanted to know.

Apparently not in Dublin, where people were as odd as two left shoes.

There was a lot of groaning and grumbling when the day came. Blouse drove his parents to the railway station and Patrick met them in Dublin. Blouse wondered how anyone could live in a place as full of noise and strangers as Dublin, but he said nothing, just smiled at everyone and shook hands when it seemed the right thing to do.

He thought the meal was extraordinary all right, no bit of dinner, but the cake was a miracle. Imagine, his own big brother had iced it and done all those curly bits himself and the pink writing too with the names and the date.

He was taking his parents home on the five o"clock train. There had been no question of an overnight in Dublin. It would have been too much for them.

Brenda, his new sister-in-law, had been very kind. "When we get a place with more room than just the floor, Blouse, you'll come and stay with us. We'd like that and we'll show you Dublin."

Til do that one day, maybe even drive the whole way in the van," Blouse said proudly.

It would be something to think about, look forward to.

Something to say around the village. "My sister-in-law in Dublin wants me to go and stay."

His father got a pain in his chest and died three months after Patrick's wedding. His mother seemed to think it was just one more low in life, like the hens not laying properly or the blight in the apple trees. Blouse looked after her the best he could. And time went on the way it always had.

There weren't any girlfriends because Blouse said he wasn't really at ease with girls. He never understood what they were laughing at, and if he laughed too they stopped laughing. But he wasn't lonely. He even went to Dublin to see his brother and sister-in-law. He drove the van the whole way.

Brenda and Patrick worried about how Blouse would cope with the traffic, but it wasn't necessary. He arrived at the house without a bother.

"I meant to tell you about the quays being one way," Patrick said.

"That wasn't a problem," Blouse said. He sat eagerly like a child waiting to be entertained.

They talked to him easily and told him how they were hoping to get a job running a really classy restaurant for a man called Quentin Barry.

"It has all been due to Brenda," Patrick said proudly. She had managed to find them this opportunity just at the right time.

Quentin Barry had come into some money, bought Mick's Cafe and wanted to set up a restaurant. He needed a chef and manager.

If this were to happen!

If they got this place going properly they were made, because the man would hardly be back at all, they could put their own stamp on the restaurant.

Blouse wasn't a drinker, but he had a glass of champagne with them to celebrate. When he got home, his mother said that Horse Harris had been around to talk business about the farm.

"What did Horse want to know?" Blouse was worried. Horse had never been good news. Apparently he had talked business with his mother. That was all she would say. Blouse wondered should he tell Patrick all about it, but no, they were too busy and excited. They had got the job working for this man Quentin who was going to let them set up their own class of a place. It wouldn't be fair, boring them with matters like Horse Harris coming to the farm and Mam's refusal to talk about it all. I I

Brenda wrote a note every week as regular as clockwork, and Patrick wrote a few lines at the end.

"I don't know what it is that has her writing all that nonsense every week, and putting a stamp on it," Mrs. Brennan said. "Too little to do, that's her problem."

But Blouse liked it. He told Horse one day that he got a letter every week from Dublin.

"Don't bother your barney replying to those two, they're after the place, that's all," Horse had said scathingly. Blouse went to take his mother her mug of tea and found her dead. He knelt down beside her bed and said a prayer, then he got the doctor, the priest and Shay Harris, the undertaker. When he had everything organised he phoned Patrick and Brenda.

There were a respectable number of people there.

"You're very much liked here, Blouse," Patrick said to him.

"Aw, sure, they all liked Mam and Dad," Blouse said.

Shay Harris asked if Patrick was going to take his things with him when he was going back to Dublin.

"What things?" Patrick asked.

And they learned that Shay's brother Horse had bought the little farm. His money "was in the bank safe and sound, it was all legal and documented. Blouse would have to leave in a month.

Patrick was incensed but, oddly, Brenda didn't agree. "He'd be far too lonely here on his own, Patrick. He would become a recluse. Tell him to come and live with us in Dublin."

"Blouse would be lost in Dublin," said Patrick.

Blouse couldn't believe it all. "I'm too stupid to live anywhere," he said sadly. I should have told you about Horse coming round here, but I was afraid you'd think I wanted you to come down and hit him for me again."

"My days of belting people are over, Blouse," Patrick said.

"You'll come and be near us," Brenda said. "You'll have your own money from the sale of the farm, so when you want to find a place for yourself you can, and you'd be a great help to us."

"What could I do? I only dig fields and mind sheep and collect eggs from under the hens."

"Couldn't you do that for us in Dublin too?" Brenda suggested.

Patrick looked at her, bewildered.

"Well, maybe not the sheep, but we could get an allotment."

"A what?"

"Allotment. You know, Blouse. They must have them in country towns too. Big bits of waste ground and everyone rents a patch and grows their own things on it, digs and plants and harvests."

"And who would it belong to?" Blouse was confused.

"Well, whoever owns the bit of ground, I suppose. I'll bring you and show you. They have little sheds and huts to put your shovels and forks in and big fences of wire to grow things up against, and what you grow you keep."