|
|
|
|
QUENTINS: EXCERPTHere is an excerpt from Quentins, published in 2002.
THE SERIOUS CELEBRATIONWhen Maggie did so well in her Leaving Certificate her father said it was something that called for a Serious Celebration. The Nolan family were going out to have dinner in a hotel. This had never happened before. They had never even been in an ordinary restaurant let alone a hotel restaurant. Other people went to the Chinese or the Italian. It was the end of the Sixties, Ireland was coming on. But not the Nolans. There was never the money to spare. There was so much to pay for. And so many calls on their time. Mrs Nolan's Mam lived with them for one thing and Mr Nolan's Dad had to have his dinner cooked for him and brought over to his flat every day. Maggie was the eldest of five. Mr Nolan worked in charge of the bacon counter at one of those old-fashioned grocery stores that people said were on the way out. He was very happy and well respected there but of course if the store really were on the way out it would be hard for Mr Nolan to get another job. Mrs Nolan worked as a cleaner in the hospital. She was very popular with the nurses and the patients, but the work was long and tiring, her veins were bad and she hoped she would be able to continue until all the children were accounted for. Maggie was the eldest of five. The others were all boys who wanted to play for English soccer teams. They had no interest in their studies and were utterly amazed that their big sister had got enough marks in exams to make people talk seriously about her going to University. They were even more amazed that their father was going to take them to the big posh hotel where nobody they knew had even been inside the door. But he kept saying Maggie’s marks would mean nothing unless there was a Serious Celebration. "Will it be just the three of you – Mam, Dad and Maggie?" they wanted to know. "A family celebration," he insisted. "Will Grandma come?" they asked. Grandma Kelly was inclined to take her teeth out in public. The money would not extend to Grandma, it was explained firmly. Grandpa Nolan said that he wouldn’t cross the door of such a place on principle. He said this before anyone invited him without explaining what the exact principle was. But that still meant seven people to a preposterously expensive hotel. "We can't do it, it's ludicrous, Mam," Maggie said. Her mother looked tired after a long day pushing a cleaning trolley around the wards. "Listen, child we are so proud of you, and what has your father been in there for, slicing bacon for year after year if he can’t take his family to a posh place when the eldest turns out to be a genius." Maggie's mother's eyes were bright as they shone in her weary face. So this stopped the discussion. There could be no more protesting. Maggie went to her room. She was eighteen. She knew that the celebration dinner would cost a fortune, maybe two weeks of her father’s wages. He would have to borrow from the Credit Union at work. Maggie would have much preferred them to have had chicken and chips and for her father to have given her fifty pounds towards books for University. But she listened to her mother. This Serious Celebration at the best hotel in Dublin would give some meaning to a lot of lives. Not only her father's – her mother, too, would like to walk around the wards mentioning casually what was on the menu at the dinner party last night. Her two difficult grandparents would rejoice as much as if they had been there. Her four younger brothers would think it was a great adventure. And if they could perhaps be persuaded not to peel the potatoes with their nails… Mr Nolan made the reservation. "Did they need a deposit?" Maggie's mother wondered. "Indeed they did not, they asked for a phone number and I gave them the bacon counter extension," he said proudly. The boys became very annoyed about the amount of washing and scrubbing and clean shirts involved in it all. Maggie’s mother said that she had told the matron where she was going and the matron had kindly lent her a stole. Maggie's father had told the general manager where he was going and the general manager had insisted that he would phone ahead and offer them a cocktail with his compliments. And eventually the evening arrived. Maggie had thought not a great deal about it because there was so much else to think of, like the fees for University and how to fit in her studies with all the hours that she would have to work earning the money. The night out in the posh hotel, the Serious Celebration, was only one more crisis along the line. Since the Nolans didn’t have a car they took two buses to get there. Mr Nolan had the money in an envelope in his inside pocket. He patted it proudly half a dozen times on the journey. Maggie felt an urge to cry every time she saw this but she kept cheerful and said over and over that she couldn’t believe they were all going to this hotel. Her friends would be so envious, she said over and over. And she was rewarded by her mother hitching the borrowed stole higher, and her father saying that the General Manager was altogether too good to arrange the cocktails. They arrived at the door and the place seemed enormous and intimidating. Nobody wanted to be the first up the steps. They felt nervous and out of place once in the restaurant. Mr Nolan wondered should they have the cocktails in the lounge or at the table? Maggie, who thought that the boys might do less damage if corralled into just one destination, was in favour of the dining room, but her mother thought that Mr Nolan might like to see the lounge as well. There was endless confusion when Mr Nolan mentioned the general manager's name. There had been no message about cocktails. Apparently nobody had phoned ahead with any such order. "Just as well, Da, we’d have all be on our ear if we had them," Maggie said and tried not to watch the waiter wince as he heard her. They decided to study the menu and by-pass cocktails. The menu was in French. "Can you translate it for us, please?" Maggie said to the scornful waiter. She was eighteen and maddened with grief that the Serious Celebration was somehow going to be dimmed. The waiter translated, under duress; Maggie remembered what everything was. She decided that her father was going to have the steak, her mother the chicken and that she and the boys would have well-done lamb chops. Nobody would have any starters, she said, but they would all have dessert, she promised the sneering waiter. The boys were so shocked and overawed by it all that for once in their wild lives they agreed with her. She had never felt so angry and upset in her whole life. The look on her parents' faces was like a knife sticking into her. They were embarrassed and ashamed – after all their borrowing and planning it had not been a good idea. "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 ridiculous outing to be a success for her. The more she protested, the worse it was going to get, the more pathetic she would make him seem. A waitress was setting up the table with the appropriate cutlery. An elegant groomed woman, 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 what it was all about. "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 will 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 to do that – there was a role to be played. "Thank you so much. When I am a lawyer I'll certainly come back here again and let you know how good it was to be appreciated," she said. "When you are qualified, and on your way, Chef Patrick and I will have our own restaurant," the woman called Brenda said. "You will leave us your name, won't you, sir, so that we can keep you on our lists?" she asked. Maggie’s father's face was red with pleasure. 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 and with his arms around the family. The supercilious waiter sniffed. Imagine making a fuss of riff-raff like these people… The Nolans went home on the bus with half the cake. It had been a seriously good celebration.
Maggie looked out 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 at the bacon counter which pleased him a lot. Maggie's mother had a very successful operation on her varicose veins and felt like a new woman. She had been made supervisor of cleaning. One of her brothers had, in fact, gone to train with a big English soccer team, the others were going nowhere fast. Her grandmother loved the 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 could 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 passé. 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 Quentin's 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," she said. "And you know it's not just to have a free dinner? I have the money saved to go back to that smart hotel," he said, anxious that 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 over-awed 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 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 in the hotel, they all agreed. Mam’s taxi arrived and they were getting their coats. "Why did you do it for us, Ms 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 Ms 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 that be all right do you think?" "I think it would make this into the most Serious Celebration this family has ever known," Maggie said.
© Maeve Binchy 2002 |
||
|
Ireland, UK, Australia & New Zealand: |
|
USA: |
|
Useful links:
UK – Orion: www.orionbooks.co.uk |
|
|