Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy

this—never encourage a driver to have a drink.”
    “I forgot,” he said, shamefaced.
    “Okay. And I think after all that claret I shouldn't leave you in charge of a bicycle. I'll drive you home.”
    On the way back he saw his mother locking up the launderette. Molly had two late-evening shifts and the money was still going to a fund to buy a place in a practice for her son.
    “That's my mam,” he said. “Can we give her a lift home?” And Declan sat in the car while his mother told Clara Casey, his boss, what a wonderful cardiologist he was and how he was destined for great things.
    On Monday, while Declan was examining Bobby Walsh, he asked about his painting. Did he prefer watercolors or oil? Apparently Bobby Walsh liked watercolors.
    “Why is that?” Declan asked.
    Lar was listening from the next cubicle. “You should train your mind to learn something new all the time,” he said reprovingly. “Even that young Fiona, and she's only a brainless little nurse,
she
manages to get new facts into her head all the time.”
    Declan burned with resentment about Fiona being dismissed as a brainless little nurse. But he didn't show it. It was early in the day. Too early to get upset. Soon, only too soon, he would hear how they had fared at the charity function.
    “Wonder how the girls got on at that do,” he said to Bobby Walsh as he took the man's blood pressure.
    “My wife was there. She said the place was swimming in alcohol,” Bobby Walsh said, glad to be of service.
    Declan moved on to Jimmy O'Brien, a small, foxy man from thewest of Ireland. He had come up to Dublin for a soccer match, had a heart attack and been taken into St. Brigid's. They had asked him to have follow-up treatment when he was discharged. Jimmy was a very shy private person who preferred to come the whole way across the country to attend this clinic rather than let any of his neighbors get to hear that he had heart problems. Declan could hear Fiona two cubicles away talking to Kitty Reilly
    “Well, Kitty, you're the sharp one. I'll have to watch out for my job here. You know more about your medication than I do. Now I imagine the doctor will want to talk to you about that breathless-ness, but it went when you took the right tablet, didn't it?”
    “I had a word with Padre Pio as well. It
wasn't just
the tablets.”
    “No, Kitty, it never is. There are so many other factors out there.” Fiona was the soul of diplomacy.
    Declan tried to learn something from her tone. Had she spent the weekend in some playboy's penthouse? Had it all been a washout? Impossible to guess. Kitty was in full flight.
    “Still, I'll listen to that nice young doctor with the ginger head on him. Is he a family man, would you say?”
    “Oh, bound to be,” Fiona said. “The nice doctors always are. Married to ruthless shrews with spectacles and research projects.”
    Declan's face broke into a huge smile. She thought he was one of the nice doctors, she thought he was married. Ah, dear Lord, there might be a hope for him still.
    At lunchtime he asked her out. Declan Carroll, who had never asked a girl out properly on a date because there was never enough money or time or confidence.
    “Would you like to come out and have dinner with me one night this week?” It sounded quite a normal thing for a person to say, yet it echoed in his ears as if he were in some huge cavern. Maybe she would laugh and tell him to have some sense. Maybe she would say no, that she had a new relationship but thanks all the same.
    “That would be great,” she said and sounded as if she meant it.
    “Where would you like to go?”
    “Take me somewhere
you
like,” Fiona said.
    Declan's mind went blank. Where did he like? He didn't
know
anywhere. He went home to his mother's kitchen table for supper in the evening. How sad was that? He had seen an article in one of the papers recently about a place called Quentins. It was
“über
elegant,” they said.
Über? Over
elegant? Maybe that