Quentins Read Online Free PDF Page B

time.” She sounded clipped.
    â€œIt’s a bit like Arizona too, all that space, except it’s red desert over there,” Ella said. “Remember the time you gave me the money for the Greyhound bus tour. When Deirdre and I went off to see the world.”
    â€œYou were twenty-one,” her mother remembered.
    â€œAnd you sent us a postcard every three days,” her father said.
    â€œYou were very generous. I saw so much that I’ll never forget, thanks to you. Deirdre had to work for the money and borrow some. I don’t think she’s paid it all back yet.”
    â€œWhy have a child if you can’t give her a holiday?” Barbara Brady’s lips were pursed with disapproval of those who didn’t take parenting seriously.
    â€œAnd what is money when all is said and done,” said Tim Brady, who had spent all his working hours, weeks and years, advising people about money and nothing else.
    Ella was mystified. But she remembered Deirdre’s advice about not killing herself trying to understand them, there was probably nothing to understand.
    Holly’s hotel was buzzing with people, most of them having driven from Dublin for dinner. But the Brady family had their rooms, time to stroll in the gardens, have a leisurely bath and then meet in the chintzy little bar for a sherry while looking at the menu.
    â€œI must say, this is a marvelous treat,” her father said over and over.
    â€œYou are such a thoughtful girl,” her mother would murmur in agreement.
    Ella told them that she loved looking at people in restaurants and imagining stories about them. Like that couple near the window, for example, they were drug pushers back in Dublin, just come for a nice respectable weekend to know what the other world was like.
    â€œAre they?” Her mother was alarmed.
    â€œOf course not,” Ella said. “It’s only pretend. Look at that group over there—what do you think they are?”
    Slowly her parents got drawn into the game. “The older couple is trying to get the younger ones to go halves in buying a boat,” said Tim Brady.
    â€œThe younger couple is telling the older ones that they’re bankrupt and asking for a loan,” said Barbara Brady.
    â€œI think it’s a group-sex thing, they all answered one of Miss Holly’s ads for wife-swapping weekends,” Ella suggested.
    And they were all laughing at the whole crazy notion of it in this of all places, when Ella looked up and saw Don Richardson and his family being ushered from the bar into the dining room. He looked over and saw them at that moment. It would be frozen forever in Ella’s mind. The Bradys all laughing at one table and Don at the door, holding it open for his father-in-law, his sons aged sixteen and fifteen, and his wife, Margery, who only lunched for charities and otherwise played golf. Margery, who was not large, weather-beaten and distant looking, but who wore a smart red silk suit and had one of those handbags that cost a fortune. Margery, who was petite, smiled up at her husband in a way that Ella would never be able to do since she was exactly the same height.
    Ella’s father was very engaged by the menu. Would smoked trout salad be too heavy a starter if he was going to have Guinness steak and oyster pie?
    Ella wondered if she might possibly be going to faint. Was this a sign that since she had refused to go out with him Don decided to play the rare role of family man? Was this self-delusion of the worst kind? Did he think less of her for being with her parents? Or quite possibly more? Would he acknowledge her in the dining room? Ella ordered absently and chose the wine. It was too late now to ask if they could eat upstairs in the bedroom. She had to face it.
    In the dining room they were quite a distance from the Richardson party. The two boys and their grandfather faced them, and the couple with the dead marriage had their backs to the