Maeve Binchy - Quentins

"Maybe, Mr. Derry, you could go behind the sofa and have a big cry if you want to about your father's nerves and then you'd feel better. Often when we go to see Mother, afterwards we have a big cry to think of all she missed. Would you like to do that?"

"No, but I might have one later," he stumbled out the words.

"Yes, I bet you will." She patted him consolingly on the hand in the shared friendship of those who were children of the nervy.

Brenda Brennan, who was lip-reading, reported the conversation to Ella. "Maud is urging him to go behind the sofa and have a big cry."

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Is he going to?"

"He says he'll have one later."

"And what's the boy saying?"

"He's wondering whether they should get on with the entertainment," Brenda reported.

"I think they should start it almost at once, don't you?" said Ella. Cathy announced that the puppet play, which was about seven minutes long, was called "The Salmon of Knowledge", but the salmon puppet itself had been damaged in transit and had lost some of his scales, so everyone was to imagine it more scaly. The audience cheered it to the echo, Maud and Simon took several bows. They asked if there were any requests for songs. They were allowed to sing two, they said, looking eagerly around the room, sure of the delighted enthusiasm they would receive.

Derry King couldn't bear them to wait one more second. He heard himself calling for a song. "Carrickfergus". He didn't know it at all, he just remembered the name the twins said people liked.

They had true little voices and stood very still, side by side, singing the song of lost love and dreams. The seas are deep, love, and I can't swim over And neither more have I wings to fly I wish I met with a handy boatman Who'd ferry over my love and I ... Derry felt a very unaccustomed prickling in his nose and eyes. He hated this kind of music, glorifying loss and building up a sentimental image of the Old Country. He was not going to let two simple children who had seen no violence in their home make him change his own attitudes. Jim Kennedy was a violent man who had made life hell for everyone around him. There was no way Derry was going to go all soft on him now. There was just some small seed there that made him think he understood why his mother forgave him so often. It must have been some kind of belief, like these children had said, that Jim Kennedy like any other drunk would have preferred a different life, but it had somehow escaped him. Was that in his mother's heart as she insisted on staying in the home that Derry had been urging her to leave?

They were at the last verse now, and generously allowing the audience to join in. Even encouraging them by raising their arms. I'm never drunk but I am seldom sober A handsome rover from town to town Ah, but I'm sick now and my days are over. Come all you young men and lay me down. They all clapped and praised Maud and Simon. The twins were busy trying to decide what their second and last song should be.

"Do you know, that was so terrific, I wonder if you'd consider quitting when you're winning?" Cathy suggested.

It was not a concept that the twins grasped easily. But Maud glanced over at Derry King. He was the guest of honour, the man they had been asked to entertain. She saw what the others had already noticed. That tears were falling unchecked down his face.

"You're right, Cathy. I think we should leave it. Not always, but just this once."

"Love you, Maud, and you, Simon," Cathy said.

"Everyone's getting very odd round here," Simon said, annoyed that they hadn't been able to sing "Low Lie the Fields of Athenry". "You don't have to be quiet just because I cried, and you don't have to drive at five miles an hour because I dared to criticise the mad speed you went at on the way here," Derry grumbled.

"Lord, but there's no pleasing you today," Ella said with a sigh.

He was contrite. "There is pleasing me as you put it. I did so enjoy that lunch. Everyone was so welcoming. Thanks, Ella."

She smiled at him. "Go on, they were delighted with you. All of them."

"Were they?" He was childishly pleased. "Oh yes, and Brenda says now that she's met you, she has less anxiety about the project. My parents don't think that you're a big bad dangerous Yank. My mathematics pupils love you to bits. You did yourself a lot of good!

"I had a happy day."

"So did I. Which is just as well, because I have a lot ahead of me," Ella said.

"You do?"

"I do, Derry. I want to sort this whole thing out about Don's computer. Finish it, once and for all. And I wonder if I can do it from your suite in the hotel."

"Sure."

"You're very restful, do you know that? You don't say big long sentences when one word will do."

"Good," he said with a smile.

"I wouldn't be able to do this without you, Derry," she said.

She was grateful that he hadn't asked her what she was going to do, but then Derry was a practical businessman. He knew he'd find out just as soon as he got to his suite. "Why don't you make Muttie and Lizzie some sandwiches?" Cathy said as she let the twins off in her old home in St Jarlath's Crescent. Til leave them some pavlova as well. Apparently Dee is on a diet and won't allow it to stay in her house overnight, in case she eats it."

"Did you ever hate Muttie and his wife Lizzie?" Maud asked Cathy in her normal conversational tone.

"No, Maud, never. Did you?"

"Of course not."

"Then why do you ask?"

"Something Derry said. He said he hated his father."

"He said that?" Cathy "was shocked.

"Not exactly, but nearly. He has cousins here, but he's not going to look them up," Simon confirmed.

"They're called Kennedy and they're house painters here in Dublin," Maud said, proud to have got the information.

I know them," Cathy said. "They work with Tom's father."

"Will we have a surprise party and bring them all together?" Maud suggested.

"No, Maud. I know I'm a dull stick, but believe me, that's not a good idea," said Cathy, who decided she must ring Dee and tell her at once. Ella and Derry made a pot of tea from the little tray in the room. "First I'll call my parents, ask them if they're sure they don't want to take the money and run." She made the call swiftly.

They wouldn't be happy to be paid off in this way, they told her.

Yes, of course, if there was compensation, if insider trading could be proved, then they'd be happy to have a share, but not this way.

"We liked Derry King," her mother ended.

"And he you, Mother."

She sat very still for a long time after that.

Derry sat equally calm, sipping his tea.

"Right," she said eventually.

"Tell me what you're going to do."

"I'm going to call his wife. Ask her what she intends to do. Does she want to have a life in Ireland again, does she own that place in Play a de los Angeles? It's the only one that's not owned absolutely by Don. Maybe he wanted that as a home for her and the children. Maybe he left her a note, too." She was very calm.

"And then?" Derry King said.

"And then, depending on what she says, I will most probably call the Fraud Squad here and ask them to come to the hotel lobby and collect the laptop."

"And what might she say that would change your mind?"

"If she says she will have nowhere to live and she can't bear the shame, I'll ask you to help me erase the stuff about her home."

"Very generous of you."

I owe him that."

"You owe him nothing. We've been through this."

"Then you'll remember I want to behave perfectly."

"He's dead, Ella. He doesn't know how well and perfectly you'll be behaving."

"Please, Derry, help me."

"How?"

"Sit beside me while I make the call."

"You've thought it all out then?"

"Yesterday, all day. I made a tour of the past, pulled it all together. This is what I want to do." "Right, I'll sit beside you," he said. The phone only rang six times, but it seemed like ages. A man answered.