Maeve Binchy - Quentins

"Have you been to Ireland, Kimberly?" Ella asked suddenly.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just the way you said that made me think you had."

"You're right. When we were first having our problems I went there. I even went to see his relations. Perfectly ordinary people. I didn't tell them about Derry, just asked around a bit. He has two cousins who started as house painters, run their own business now. They are so like him in many ways. But he'll never get to know them."

"Did you tell him?"

"Tried to, but no use. Then I met Larry, so I had other things on my mind."

"How long have you and Larry been married?" Ella asked.

"Eighteen months. I hope it lasts." She laughed a very brittle laugh.

"You are very hard on yourself, Kimberly. He adores you. Anyone can see that."

"Aha, I wish I had your faith and optimism."

"Oh, but he does. You saw him. And so does Derry. He looks at you as if he still loves you a lot."

"No, Derry doesn't love me. He's my great friend. He looks out for me. He keeps a quiet eye on some of Larry's worst extravagances. He doesn't think I know. And I care for him too, as a friend. Were you and this Don Richardson friends?"

"What?"

"I know you loved him, but were you friends?"

"No, no, he went away and left me. He wasn't a friend in that sense. But he still loved me, he wrote to me to tell me that the night before ... the night before it happened."

Kimberly looked as if she were struggling to find something to say. Ella rescued her. "It's all right. Everything changed then. I can do anything now that I know he really loved me."

"I can see by your face that's true," Kimberly said truthfully. Ella's face did look serene and calm. Whatever this guy had said to her, she believed it and it was doing her good. The tour of the artwork was leisurely. They walked, glass of wine in hand, while Derry King explained about the young people and their sense of vision. Some of the artists were from inner-city schemes, where their brothers and neighbours were mainly into gangs and drugs, yet they saw beauty in everyday life.

And Derry King didn't send out for a take-away, either. Instead, he took Ella into his state-of-the-art kitchen and said he was going to make a stir-fry in a wok. He had asked the butcher to cut up the meat into tiny strips, the vegetables were chopped and prepared too. "It's probably not so much making it, more assembling it," he said apologetically.

"Oh, no. I'd definitely consider it was making it," Ella reassured him. "You went to the butcher's yourself, and you don't have a fleet of staff serving it."

"Did you expect that?" Derry still had the habit she had noticed the first time she met him of asking simple, direct questions that made you reveal much more about yourself than you intended to.

"Well, I suppose I know you're very wealthy. This is an extremely classy building. I suppose I thought people opening your door for you and cooking your meals might go with the territory," she admitted.

"Is that what you'd have?"

"No! I'd hate it. If I had a place like this, I'd well look after it on my own, no matter how much money I earned." She stared around it admiringly.

"I do have a team that comes in three times a week when I'm not here. They clean and iron, and I have to admit that today I called them and asked them to do the vegetables. Was that cheating?" He had a very infectious smile.

"I bet they're mad about you," she teased.

"Oh, I doubt it. One more job in a long day of hauling cleaning stuff around Manhattan."

"You're probably their only client who has that much sympathy for them."

"I have admiration for them too. They saw a niche in the market and went for it."

"Did you find them, or did Kimberly?"

I did. Kim liked to have someone live in. It was a different kind of life, kind of place entirely."

"So you and she didn't live here then?"

"Lord, no. Kim thinks this isn't a home. She thinks it's a school project room. No, her place, and indeed our place when we were together, was a matter of one drawing room opening into another - perfect for entertaining. I don't do much of that ... as you can so all this suits me better."

And then it was as if he had very politely pulled down a shutter. It was as if he were saying, This is as far as you are going to go today, Ella Brady, no more personal questions ...

She took the message on board. She told him about her plans for the next day. She had a small sum of money kept aside to buy gifts if her mission had been successful, and now it was, so she would go shopping.

"Women love that," he said, almost wistfully. "I can't get a kick out of it myself, clothes are just to keep you warm and decent."

"Oh, I won't be shopping for clothes. I'm talking about trinkets. You know the kind of thing ... joke clapper board for Nick and Sandy to show they're really in the big time now, some big paper sunflowers for my mother, a football hat for my father, a frilly nightie for Deirdre, a book of table decorations for Thanksgiving for Brenda and Patrick in Quentins. Oh, I've got another dog collar for Simon and Maud, like the one I gave you that horrified you so much."

"It did not horrify me. It touched me to the heart," he protested.

"Now, Derry, I want to leave this country while still continuing to respect your honesty," Ella laughed.

"Then look at this." He opened his wallet and took out a Polaroid of a lopsided puppy with a hopeless grin wearing the twinkling, bejewelled collar.

"You actually did put it on an animal! Aren't you just marvellous!" she cried.

"That's not an animal, that's no ordinary dog. I'll have you know you're looking at Fennel."

"Well doesn't Fennel look just fine in his new collar!"

"He loves it, apparently. They tell me at the kennels he won't have it taken off. He pines until they put it back on. Maybe you know more about dogs than I do."

"He lives at a kennel?"

"He has to live somewhere. He can't live here. He followed me home one night. I couldn't leave him."

"Maybe he belongs to somebody."

"Fennel never belonged to anybody. He was born in some alley. His mother may have been killed. He lived by his wits until he found me. He's a survivor, Fennel. He found one of the few men in New York who would look him in the eye and then pay for him to live in luxury for the rest of his life. I take him for walks in the park. We get some very odd looks, thanks to that collar ... but what do I know? Maybe the other dogs are drop-dead envious."

"You're a very kind man, Derry King," Ella said.

"And you're a kind girl, Ella Brady, going off to stores getting gifts for all your friends when your heart is broken," he said.

Then everything changed a little, as if they had been old friends for ever.

She helped him to make the salad and told him about Don quite calmly, from the very first day she had met him, right down to the letter that had been delivered to her parents" house.

He asked questions that never seemed intrusive, but which carried the story along. "Did he seem sad when you were in Spain together?"

"Yes, he did, sometimes. I didn't realise that it was "worry because he was preparing a hiding place. I thought it was because he wanted it to go on for ever ... the two of us there."

"Perhaps it was that," Derry suggested.

And then, later, she was telling him about the numbing shock of reading in the newspapers that he had left people without their life savings. Story after story unfolding of loss and deceit.

"What was the very worst bit?" Derry asked.

"At the start, the worst bit was the papers talking about him and his wife, this close couple which I knew they were not. That hurt a lot. But the very worst bit was my father trying to be brave. My poor, decent, hard-working father, who would never cheat anyone in his life, ending his career in disgrace because my boyfriend gave him some false leads. It was bad enough for him to know that I was having an affair with a married man, that alone was enough to upset him and my mother. But the other. That was unbearable. I literally could not bear to think about it, which was why Nick and everyone got me involved in this project, so that I wouldn't have to think any more."