Maeve Binchy - Quentins

"This is something I will always remember, Mam, Dad," Maggie said truthfully. She would remember it every day of her life, when she was a high-flying lawyer, when she was confident enough to know every dish on the menu and to be known with admiration by every one of the hotel staff here.

"Maybe it wasn't quite . . ." Dad began.

Maggie felt faint, quite literally, as if she were going to fall over. He had wanted so much for this outing to be a success for her. The more she protested, the worse it was going to get, and the more pathetic she would make him seem.

A waitress "was setting up the table with the appropriate cutlery. An elegant, groomed woman, aged around thirty, she wore a white lace collar and she was probably as horrible, snobbish and dismissive as the rest of them. Maggie burned with rage at it all.

But this woman somehow managed to catch her eye with a look of understanding. This woman seemed to know it was a special occasion.

"My name is Brenda Brennan, and I'll be serving at your table. Might I enquire if this is a special family celebration?" she asked.

"My eldest - you wouldn't believe, Miss, the marks she got." Poor Da was bursting with eagerness to tell someone, anyone, what it was all about.

"Well, I'll tell this to Chef. He just loves to hear that we have academic people in. Usually it's only people on expense accounts," the woman called Brenda said.

Maggie wanted to get up and hug her. But she knew that she must not do that - there was a role to be played.

"Thank you so much. When you're qualified and on your way, Chef Patrick and I will have our own restaurant," the woman called Brenda said.

Maggie's father's face was glowing red with pleasure.

"You will leave us your name, won't you, sir, so that we can keep you on our lists?" she asked.

The scornful waiter was surprised when Patrick, the tall, dark and moody chef, said he was doing a special dessert, free, for everyone in the Nolan party.

He piped the name "Maggie" on it in chocolate and asked for it to be brought out and photographed. He posed beside it, wearing his chef's hat, with his arms around the family.

The supercilious waiter sniffed. Imagine making a fuss of riffraff like these people ...

The Nolans went home on the bus with half the cake. It had been a seriously good celebration.

Maggie looked out of her window that night and thought of the length of time it would take her father to pay it all back. By the time she was a qualified lawyer and received her Parchment as a solicitor, four years had passed. And a lot of things had happened.

Her father's company had sold out, as had been predicted, but he had been taken on by the new buyers and he wore a straw hat and striped apron at the bacon counter, which pleased him a lot.

Maggie's mother had had a successful operation on her varicose veins and felt like a new woman. She had been made supervisor of cleaning. One of Maggie's brothers had, in fact, gone to train with a big English soccer team, though the others were going nowhere fast.

Her grandmother went to a day centre now; things for old people had vastly improved. She loved it there, where she could terrorise everyone happily all day.

Maggie's grandfather, who when he was seventy couldn't cook his own lunch, met when he was seventy-two a tough woman who taught him to cook everything, married him and turned round his life.

Maggie won the Gold Medal in Law and was in a position to choose from any law firm in the country.

She knew her father wanted to take her back to the dull, snobbish restaurant, which had by now become totally passe. She couldn't tell him that the place had fallen from grace and that no one went there now.

She didn't need to tell him.

Once Maggie's Gold Medal was announced in the papers, an invitation arrived at her father's house. Brenda and Patrick Brennan, who were now managing the magnificent Quentins Restaurant, hoped the family would join them for a Serious Celebration. They wrote to say that their luck had turned on the night they met the Nolans. It was only fitting that they all mark this in a special way.

Maggie's father was a generous man. He had no idea that Quentins was the last word these days.

"Well, I'd like to have got you the best, Maggie, but seeing as these people did well, it would seem to be ungracious not to go, don't you think?"

"You've never been ungracious, Da."

"And you know it's not just to have a free dinner? I have the money saved to go back to that smart place," he said, anxious there should be no misunderstandings.

They went to Quentins by bus, but they would go home by taxi - this was going to be Mam's treat. Maggie's brothers were not overawed this time. They were four years older for one thing; but the place didn't try to put them down.

Maggie recognised the woman. Everyone was greeting her, trying to catch her eye. Brenda Brennan was warm to everyone but dallied at no table; she was always on the move.

"We can never thank you enough for this," Brenda began.

"And do you run this place yourself, Miss? I must say, it's very respectable-looking," Da interrupted.

Brenda said she did run it, and that Chef Patrick this time had a cake with a gold medal on it for Maggie.

It was ten times as good a meal as the one they had had four years ago, they all agreed.

Mam's taxi arrived to take them home and they were getting their coats.

"Why did you do it for us, Mrs. Brennan?" Maggie asked quietly as they were leaving. "All that business about pretending that your luck changed the night -we met you .. ."

"But that was true," Brenda said. "That was the night we realised we could not go on working for a place like that, no matter how good it looked on a CV. Supercilious, snobbish people, no welcome, no warmth, no love of food

"How do you remember it was the night we "were there?" Maggie wanted to know.

"You were real people, honest people having a celebration. They treated you like dirt. We couldn't bear it. We talked about you for a long time that night. The evening seemed to sum up how degrading it was to "work for a place that treated its visitors so badly. And as it happened I came across some information the next night, sort of heard, you might say, that they were looking for people to run Quentins. And because of your family we somehow found the courage. We gave in our notice - and, as you see, it worked out rather well."

Maggie knew Mrs. Brennan wasn't an emotional person. Not someone you might hug. But Maggie still put a hug in her eyes. And saw it had been received. The woman swallowed and spoke slowly.

In fact, Maggie, as you must realise, I'm very much understating it - it's a habit you get into at work. It all worked out better than we could have dreamed. It's we who owe you - that's why you were our guests tonight and you must come again."

"When my parents are twenty-five years married, maybe?" Maggie said with a smile.

Brenda Brennan agreed. "That, or when your brother gets picked to play soccer for Ireland. My brother-in-law out in the kitchen recognised him - he wants his autograph. Would it be all right if he asked your brother for it, do you think?"

I think it would make this into the most Serious Celebration this family has ever known," Maggie said.

Drew had never been to Ireland in his life. And had never even considered going there until the company announced that the sales conference would be held in Dublin. Moira said it would just be a piss-up, an excuse to waste even more money than usual. "The company is paying for it all," Drew protested.

"Not for everything," Moira said. She knew that there would be pints and outings and items that no company would pay for.

Drew and Moira had been going out together for three years. A lot of things were agreed between them but nothing was settled. They loved each other, that "was agreed, and they would marry and have two children one day, that was agreed. But when this would happen was not settled.