Maeve Binchy - Minding Frankie

ALSO BY MAEVE BINCHY

Fiction

Light a Penny Candle
Echoes
London Transports
The Lilac Bus
Firefly Summer
Silver Wedding
Circle of Friends
The Copper Beech
The Glass Lake
This Year It Will Be Different
Evening Class
The Return Journey
Tara Road
Scarlet Feather
Quentins
Nights of Rain and Stars
Whitethorn Woods
Heart and Soul

Nonfiction

Aches & Pains
The Maeve Binchy Writers Club

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 2010 by Maeve Binchy
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in Great Britain by Orion Books, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd., a Hachette UK company, London, in 2010.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Binchy, Maeve.
Minding Frankie / by Maeve Binchy.1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-59516-4
1. Recovering alcoholicsFiction. 2. Child rearingFiction. 3. FatherhoodFiction. 4. FamiliesFiction. 5. Interpersonal relationsFiction. 6. Community lifeIrelandFiction. 7. City and town lifeIrelandFiction. 8. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PR6052.I7728M56 2011
823.914dc22 2010035999

Jacket art by William Low

Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson

v3.1

For dear generous Gordon,
who makes life great every single day

Katie Finglas was coming to the end of a tiring day in the salon. Anything bad that could happen had happened. A woman had not told them about an allergy and had come out with lumps and a rash on her forehead. A brides mother had thrown a tantrum and said that she looked like a laughingstock. A man who had wanted streaks of blond in his hair became apoplectic when, halfway through the process, he had inquired what they would cost. Katies husband, Garry, had placed both his hands innocently on the shoulders of a sixty-year-old female client, who had then told him that she was going to sue him for sexual harassment and assault.

Katie looked now at the man standing opposite her, a big priest with sandy hair mixed with gray.

Youre Katie Finglas and I gather you run this establishment, the priest said, looking around the innocent salon nervously as if it were a high-class brothel.

Thats right, Father, Katie said with a sigh. What could be happening now?

Its just that I was talking to some of the girls who work here, down at the center on the quays, you know, and they were telling me

Katie felt very tired. She employed a couple of high school dropouts: she paid them properly, trained them. What could they have been complaining about to a priest?

Yes, Father, what exactly is the problem? she asked.

Well, it is a bit of a problem. I thought I should come to you directly, as it were. He seemed a little awkward.

Very right, Father, Katie said. So tell me what it is.

Its this woman, Stella Dixon. Shes in hospital, you see

Hospital? Katies head reeled. What could this involve? Someone who had inhaled the peroxide?

Im sorry to hear that. She tried for a level voice.

Yes, but she wants a hairdo.

You mean she trusts us again? Sometimes life was extraordinary.

No, I dont think she was ever here before. He looked bewildered.

And your interest in all this, Father?

I am Brian Flynn and I am acting chaplain at St. Brigids Hospital at the moment, while the real chaplain is in Rome on a pilgrimage. Apart from being asked to bring in cigarettes and drink for the patients, this is the only serious request Ive had.

You want me to go and do someones hair in hospital?

Shes seriously ill. Shes dying. I thought she needed a senior person to talk to. Not, of course, that you look very senior. Youre only a girl yourself, the priest said.

God, werent you a sad loss to the women of Ireland when you went for the priesthood, Katie said. Give me her details and Ill bring my magic bag of tricks in to see her.

Thank you so much. I have it all written out here. Father Flynn handed her a note.

A middle-aged woman approached the desk. She had glasses on the tip of her nose and an anxious expression.

I gather you teach people the tricks of hairdressing, she said.

Yes, or more the art of hairdressing, as we like to call it, Katie said.

I have a cousin coming home from America for a few weeks. She mentioned that in America there are places where you could get your hair done for near to nothing cost if you were letting people practice on you.

Well, we do have a students night on Tuesdays; people bring in their own towels and we give them a style. They usually contribute five euros to a charity.

Tonight is Tuesday! the woman cried triumphantly.

So it is, Katie said through gritted teeth.

So, could I book myself in? Im Josie Lynch.

Great, Mrs. Lynchsee you after seven oclock, Katie said, writing down the name. Her eyes met the priests. There was sympathy and understanding there.

It wasnt all champagne and glitter running your own hairdressing salon.

Josie and Charles Lynch had lived in 23 St. Jarlaths Crescent since they were married thirty-two years ago. They had seen many changes in the area. The corner shop had become a mini-supermarket; the old laundry, where sheets had been ironed and folded, was now a Laundromat, where people left big bags bulky with mixed clothes and asked for a service wash. There was now a proper medical practice with four doctors where once there had been just old Dr. Gillespie, who had brought everyone into the world and seen them out of it.

During the height of the economic boom, houses in St. Jarlaths Crescent had changed hands for amazing sums of money. Small houses with gardens near the city center had been much in demand. Not anymore, of coursethe recession had been a great equalizer, but it was still a much more substantial area than it had been three decades ago.

After all, just look at Molly and Paddy Carroll, with their son Declana doctora real, qualified doctor! And just look at Muttie and Lizzie Scarlets daughter Cathy. She ran a catering company that was hired for top events.

But a lot of things had changed for the worse. There was no community spirit anymore. No church processions went up and down the Crescent on the feast of Corpus Christi, as they used to. Josie and Charles Lynch felt that they were alone in the world, and certainly in St. Jarlaths Crescent, in that they knelt down at night and said the Rosary.

That had always been the way.

When they married they planned a life based on the maxim that the family that prays together stays together. They had assumed they would have eight or nine children, because God never put a mouth into this world that He didnt feed. But that wasnt to happen. After Noel, Josie had been told there would be no more children. It was hard to accept. They both came from big families; their brothers and sisters had produced big families. But then, perhaps, it was all meant to be this way.

They had always hoped Noel would be a priest. The fund to educate him for the priesthood was started before he was three. Money was put aside from Josies wages at the biscuit factory. Every week a little more was added to the post office savings account, and when Charles got his envelope on a Friday from the hotel where he was a porter, a sum was also put into the post office. Noel would get the best of priestly educations when the time came.