Minding Frankie (27 page)

Clara put the letter down and looked over at Frank. His eyes were too bright and there was a tear on his face. She got up and went across to him with her arms out.

“Isn’t this
wonderful
, Frank!” she cried. “You’ve got a son! Isn’t that the best news in the world?”

“Well, yes, but we’ve got to be cautious,” Frank began.

“What do we have to be cautious about? There was a woman called Rita Raven, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, but …”

“And she disappeared off the scene?”

“She went to some cousins in the U.S.A.,” he said.

“Or to some non-cousins in Australia …,” Clara corrected him.

“But it will all have to be checked out …,” he began to bluster.

She deliberately misunderstood him. “Of course the airlines and everything, but let him do that, Frank—the young are much better at getting flights online than we are. The main thing is what time is it in Australia? You can ring him straightaway.” She busied herself removing the plastic wrap from the smoked salmon.

He hadn’t moved. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her he had had the letter for two weeks and hadn’t been able to decide what to do.

“Come on, Frank, it’s surely morning there and if you leave it any longer he’ll have gone out to school. Call him now, will you?”

“But we’ll have to talk about it?”

“Like what do we have to talk about?”

“But don’t you mind?”

“
Mind
, Frank? I’m delighted. The only thing I mind is you, after all these years, having to talk to an answering machine.”

He looked at her, bewildered. There were so many things that he would never understand.

“How was Frank last night?” Hilary asked Clara the next day at the clinic. Only Hilary was ever given any information, and she was the only one who dared to ask.

“Amazing,” Clara said and left it there.

“And did you enjoy the opera?” Hilary persisted.

“We didn’t go. He arranged a catered meal in his apartment.”

“My God, this sounds serious!” Hilary was delighted. She always said that they were made for each other. Something Clara continued to deny.

“Frank is as he always was and always will be: cautious and watchful, never spontaneous. Stop trying to matchmake, will you, Hilary?”

Frank had dithered so long last night that the telephone rang unanswered in Des Raven’s home on the other side of the world. Frank had managed to miss talking to the son he hadn’t known he had, just because he was anxious to talk it over and check it out. All this had led to nothing, but Clara told none of this to Hilary. It was still Frank’s secret. She wasn’t going to blurt it out.

“Where is Moira? Today’s one of her days, isn’t it?”

“She’s just taken Kitty Reilly on a tour of residential homes. She
has a checklist as long as her arm about what Kitty needs—you know, easy access to church, vegetarian food … that sort of thing.” Hilary sounded half impressed, half annoyed.

“She’s very thorough, I’ll say that for her,” Clara said grudgingly.

“I know what you mean. If she smiled more, maybe?” Hilary wondered. “Anyway, Linda rang you earlier. You were with somebody, so I took the call.”

Hilary’s son was married to Clara’s daughter. The two women had schemed to introduce their children to each other and it had worked spectacularly well. Apart from not producing a grandchild. Despite a lot of intervention, there was no success. Both her son, Nick, and Clara’s Linda were very despondent.

“She said no luck again.”

“If she’s so het up, she will
never
conceive. She has a list of three dozen people she phones every month. You, me and about thirty more.”

“Clara!” Hilary was shocked. “She’s your daughter and she thinks you are as excited as she is at the thought of you becoming a granny, and of me becoming one at the same time!”

“You’re right—I’d forgotten. Pass me the phone.” Hilary watched as Clara soothed Linda and patted her down.

Linda was obviously crying at the other end. Hilary moved away. She would have loved Nick and Linda to have given them good news. She could hear Clara saying, “Of
course
you’re normal, Linda. Please stop crying, sweetheart. You’ll have horrible, piggy, red eyes. I
know
you don’t care, but you will later on when you’re getting dressed to go out.… Well, to Hilary’s, of course—that’s where we’re all going tonight. Don’t even consider canceling, Linda. Hilary has bought
the
most gorgeous dessert.”

“Oh, I have, have I?” Hilary said when Clara hung up.

“I had to say something. She was about to go home to a darkened room.”

“All right, then. I had been going to serve cheese and grapes, but you’ve raised my game,” Hilary said. “What did Frank Ennis serve last night as a dessert?”

“Apple tart,” Clara said.

“Are you
sure
he didn’t ask you some question? Something you’ve forgotten to tell me.…”

“Oh, shut up, Hilary. Look, here comes Moira. Let’s pretend to be doing
some
work here.”

Moira was triumphant. The fifth place they had looked at was perfect for Kitty Reilly—full of retired nuns and retired priests and a vegetarian option at every meal. All you could ask for, in fact.

“Lord, I hope I’ll ask for a lot more than that when the time comes,” Clara said piously.

“What would you like, exactly?” Moira asked.

An innocent enough question, but Moira’s tone seemed to suggest that for Clara the time probably had come already.

“I don’t know: a library, a casino, a gym, oh, and a grandchild!” Clara said. “What about you, Moira, when the time comes?”

“I’d like to be with friends. You know, people I have known for a long time so that we could do a lot of remembering together.”

“And will you do that, do you think? Get a group of friends and set up your own place?” Clara was interested. She and her friend Dervla had often discussed doing just that.

“Probably not. I don’t have many friends. I never had time to make friends along the way,” Moira said unexpectedly.

Clara looked at her sharply. For a moment the veil had been lifted and she saw a very lonely woman indeed. Then the veil fell again and it was as before.

“Will you come round this evening and we’ll call him? Earlier than we did last night …” Frank was full of plans.

“No, Frank, I can’t tonight. Hilary’s cooking dinner,” Clara said.

“But you
have
to come!” He was outraged.

“I can’t, Frank. I told you …”

“You’re very doctrinaire,” he said crossly.

“And so are you. If you had called immediately you would have caught him.”

“Please, Clara.”

“No. I’m not saying it again. Wait until the next night if you need me to be there and hold your hand for you.” She hung up.

Frank sat listening to the empty line. What a fool he had been not to have telephoned the boy immediately! Clara was right. He
had
dithered, and the only result of his delay was the boy would think he was having a door closed in his face. Of course he remembered Rita Raven. Who wouldn’t have remembered her? His mother and father had been most disapproving.

Rita was from entirely the wrong kind of family. The Ennises hadn’t worked hard and risen to this degree of respectability just to be dragged down by their son. Frank Ennis had had parents who acted swiftly. Rita Raven had disappeared from everyone’s life. Frank had thought of her from time to time slightly wistfully, and now she had died. So young. He still saw her as the pretty seventeen-year-old she had been then. Imagine, she had gone all the way to Australia and had her child without ever letting him know. He had had simply no idea of this.

If he had known, what would he have done? He was uneasy thinking about it. Back then, on the edge of a career, back then, in a more disapproving climate, he might not have acted well. His parents had been so hostile about his relationship with Rita and so open in their relief that she had left the country. They couldn’t possibly have known more than they said, could they? His stomach churned at the possibility of it. But they
couldn’t
. Not paid a sum of money to buy her off. That was impossible. They were careful with money. No, he mustn’t go down that avenue of suspicion.

Damn Clara and her hen parties! He really needed to have her at his side.

Hilary served them an elegant meal. When she had gone to the gourmet shop to buy a deluxe dessert, she saw some unusual salads and bought those too.

The conversation was tense and stilted, as it always was on the
days after Linda had discovered that, yet again, she wasn’t pregnant. Clara and Hilary looked at each other. Years ago it had been so different. There were orphanages full of children yearning for happy homes. Today, there were allowances and grants for single mothers.

Clara wondered if Moira had any further news about the child she said would shortly be going into care. She’d said the little girl was a few months, exactly the same age as Declan and Fiona’s baby. Lucky little girl if she got Linda and Nick as parents. No child would find a more welcoming home, not to mention two besotted grannies. She must ask Moira about it tomorrow.

Clara let her mind wander to Frank’s apartment. She hoped he was being tactful and diplomatic with Des Raven. Had she stressed enough that he must
sound
delighted and welcoming? The first impression was crucial. This boy had waited for over a quarter of a century to talk to his father. Let Frank make it a good experience for him.
Please
.

Yet again the call went to the answering machine.

Frank was unreasonably annoyed. Did this guy spend
any
time at home? It must be about six-thirty in the morning. Where
was
he? Absently, later in the evening he dialed again, and to his surprise the phone was answered by a girl with what seemed a very strong Australian accent. Frank realized that Des Raven probably spoke like that too.

“I was looking for Des Raven …,” he began.

“You missed him, mate,” she said cheerfully.

“And who am I talking to?” Frank asked.

“I’m Eva. I’m housesitting.”

“And when will he be back?”

“Three months. I’m walking his dog and looking after his garden.”

“Oh, and are you his girlfriend?”

“Who are
you
?” she asked with spirit.

“Sorry, I’m just a … friend … from Ireland.”

“Well, he’s on his way to you, then.” Eva was pleased to have it all settled so easily. “Probably there now. No, wait, he’s going to England first because that’s where he lands. It’s near you, right?”

“Yes, under an hour’s plane journey.” Frank felt the entire conversation was very unreal.

“Right, then, he knows where to find you?”

“He does?”

“Well, he left here with a briefcase full of papers and notes and letters. He showed a big batch to me. I think they were all from people he had written to who had written back.”

“Yes, yes, indeed …” Frank was miserable.

“So, will I say who called him? I’m keeping a list beside the phone.”

“Have many people called?” he asked out of interest.

“Nope, you’re the first. What will I put down?”

“As you say, he’ll be here in a day or two.…” Frank Ennis had no wish to muddy these waters any further.

He contemplated telling Clara, but she was at this confounded dinner and might not value an interruption about his private life. It was
impossible
to know how women would react to anything. Look at Rita Raven, heading to the ends of the earth to have a child by herself! Look at how childishly pleased Clara had been to hear that Frank had fathered a child outside marriage!

He thought morosely about the women after Rita and before Clara. A line, not a long line, but they all had one thing in common: they were incredibly hard to understand.

The boy would have to get in touch through the hospital. He didn’t know Frank’s home address. He wasn’t going to blurt out the whole story to whoever he met first. Frank had no fears on that score. The boy, Des, as he must learn to think of him, had written that he understood the moral climate might not have changed or moved on in Ireland as much as it had in Australia. He wished Des had sent a picture of himself. Then he realized that the boy … all right, Des … didn’t know what his father looked like either.

Quite possibly there was a picture of Frank from many years ago.
He hoped not. He hated being seen twenty-five years later, hair beginning to thin, stomach beginning to expand. What would Des Raven think of the father he had waited so long to meet? The days seemed to be crawling by.

When it happened it was curiously flat.

Miss Gorman, who had been hired by Frank ten years previously because she was not flighty, came in to see him. The years had resulted in Miss Gorman becoming even less flighty, if this was possible. She had a disapproval rating about almost everything. A man with an Australian accent had been on the phone wishing to talk to Mr. Ennis on a personal matter. He had been condemned because of his accent, his persistence and his defining anything to Miss Gorman as being personal. It was surprising, then, that Frank seemed to take it all so seriously.

“Where was he calling from?” he asked crisply.

“Somewhere in Dublin. He didn’t really know
where
he was, Mr. Ennis.” Miss Gorman’s sniff was unmerciful.

“When he calls again, make sure that you put him right through.”

“Well, I am sorry if I did the wrong thing, Mr. Ennis. It’s just that you never
ever
talk to anyone you don’t know.”

“Miss Gorman, you didn’t do the wrong thing. You are
incapable
of doing the wrong thing.”

“I hope that I have been able to make this clear over the years.” She was mollified and withdrew to await the call.

“I’m putting you through, Mr. Ennis,” she said eventually.

“Thank you, Miss Gorman.” He waited until she was off the line, then in a shaky voice he asked, “Des? Is that you?”

“So you
did
get my letter?” Very Australian but not very warm, not excited like his letter had been.