Maeve Binchy - Quentins

Even his brother Patrick seemed to think it was a good idea. "We could put that on the menu ... organic vegetables, fresh free range eggs," he said.

"But where would I live?" Blouse began.

"There are plenty of places letting rooms near here. I'll ask around and find out," Patrick said.

"And you could eventually come and live with us, of course," said Brenda. "There's a warren of old rooms in the back and upstairs. They're in the most desperate state at the moment but it will all look fine in time. We've done our room upstairs so when we have time to get the rubble cleared out, we'll paint one of them for you. You could help choose the paint and all."

His mother had never asked him what colour room he'd like. Blouse had always wanted yellow walls and a white ceiling. He had seen a room like that in a magazine and thought it would be very cheerful with a tartan bedspread. And now he was going to have one of his own.

I'd love to see the place and have a vision of it," he said.

There was something about the way he said "vision" that made Brenda and Patrick feel choked up.

They had a million other things to do which were higher priority than finding Blouse somewhere to stay but that's not the way it seemed now.

"Come on and we'll take you to see where you might live," Brenda said.

Once they arrived at the shambles that was going to be their beloved restaurant they found themselves leading Blouse off to the storehouses, outhouses and falling-down rooms that formed the back of Quentins.

Blouse found a room that suited him well. He was not one to sit down and talk about things. "Will I start on it now, do you think, Brenda?" he asked with his big, innocent smile.

She seemed to have tears in her eyes when she said that would be great, but he might have imagined it.

He got a wheelbarrow and got rid of the rubble. Blouse wanted the room to be nice and empty when they brought up all the furniture from home, from the little farm that Horse Harris had bought. They would bring the bed he had slept in all his life and the grandfather clock.

"Maybe I'll clear out a few other rooms for you," Blouse offered. "We have a lot of furniture coming up from home, and if in the future you could offer the staff living accommodation you might get them cheaper."

They looked at him in amazement. It was all coming together. Thanks to Blouse. And it was arranged much more speedily than anyone could have believed.

Patrick managed to call and see Horse Harris before they left the town with every stick of furniture on board a huge rented van.

"Glad there are no hard feelings," Horse said with the horrible smile of a man who knew he had beaten the slightly simple Blouse Brennan and his smart-arse brother.

"None at all, Horse," said Patrick, giving him a handshake that could have broken every finger in Horse's hand and a twist of the wrist that could have and did twist the muscle.

Horse had no grounds to complain. Blouse worked hard on the allotment. He drove there every day in the old van that had belonged to his parents. He learned about new vegetables that had never been part of his life back home. He had two dozen Rhode Island Reds who laid big fresh eggs and he was planning to get two dozen more.

Some evenings he helped behind the scenes in the restaurant. Blouse never minded what he was asked to do. Take out the rubbish, stack the dish-washing machines. He moved out of Patrick's house and got himself a little place near the allotment so that he could keep an eye on the hens. He had a lock on their coop at night, but it was nice to be near them.

A young, businesslike woman called on him one day. She said she was Mary O'Brien, and she had been given his address by Mrs. Brennan in Quentins. She was anxious to do an article in a magazine about keeping hens and growing vegetables and she wondered if she could discuss the finer points with him.

They sat and talked, and he stroked the feathers of the hens as he spoke, and he picked out seedlings to show her how they should be planted.

Mary said she hadn't enjoyed herself so much for ages, and now could he show her where to get the bus back to the office?

"Don't you have a car?" Blouse thought she was a smart kind of person who would definitely be driving an office car and changing it every eighteen months.

"I'm afraid to drive. I've tried lessons, but I always panic," she admitted.

"Ah no, it's very simple," Blouse explained. "When you panic you just indicate and pull in, that's what I always did for years and I drive now like as if I had wings." He gave her a lift back in his battered van, and pretended he was anxious now and then.

"I don't like the look of that big bus bearing down on me. I see a place on my side so I'll indicate and move in until we catch our breath and then we can go."

Mary O'Brien looked at him with amazement. "Would you teach me to drive?" she begged.

"Oh, no, I'm not qualified. I'm only an eejit. You have to go to a professional, they wouldn't want a half-wit like me to be taking away their living."

She shook his hand and said she'd send a photographer out to his allotment. "You're no eejit, don't put yourself down. I really hope I'll see you again," she said.

Blouse felt terrific. He knew she meant it. "If you got a nice driving teacher, maybe he'd let me sit at the back of the car as a kind of support," he said.

"I think that wouldn't be a problem," said Mary O'Brien.

They were loath to part.

"You'll be famous after this article, Blouse Brennan. Self sufficiency guru, they'll call you. Well, I'll call you that anyway, and then other people will."

"Imagine," he said.

"Oh, by the way, about your name . . . your brother said your real name was

"I'm happy with Blouse," he said quickly.

"I think you're right. If I had a name like that, I'd keep it," Mary O'Brien said wistfully.

"I'll give you a ring when the photographer has been and gone," said Blouse Brennan, who had never had his picture taken professionally and never telephoned a girl before in his life. Longings Brenda had been very sure that she would conceive quickly. Her mother had given birth to five daughters and there were hints that there would have been many more had not great abstinence been practised. Two of her sisters had what were called honeymoon babies, and apart from her friend Nora out in Italy, everyone else that she knew had children. In fact, there were times when she feared that pregnancy might come too early and leave her unable to cope. In those years she had thought about it from time to time. But now, with the eighteen-hour days they often worked at the setting up of Quentins, in those early, exhausting months dealing with builders, planning the layout of the kitchens and the dining area, the setting up of suppliers, it was the furthest thing from their minds.

When it got a little calmer, after the opening of the restaurant when Quentin had gone away with an easy heart to Morocco to leave them totally in charge, Brenda began to th ink about it all again. They had been many years married now, both of them apparently fit and strong.

"About us having children?" she began one evening when they were sitting with mugs of tea in the kitchen they had insisted on having in their upstairs flat. Even though they would live over one of the best kitchens in Dublin, they didn't want to go down there if they needed a scrambled egg.

She saw Patrick's eyes light up and he reached for her hand. "Brenda, no?" There was such hope in his voice and face.

"No, sadly no." She tried to keep her own voice light and not to dwell on the sense of loss she had just noticed.

He got up to try and hide his face. "Sorry, I just thought when you said about us having children," he muttered away from her.

She sat still. "I know. I want it as much as you do, Patrick. So don't you think we should talk?"