Silver Wedding by Maeve Binchy Page B

to be confrontation.
    ‘What can I do for you?’ He had a mock gallantry. He was quite handsome in a way, dark with curly hair. Old of course, as old as her father, even. But different.
    ‘I suppose you could take me to lunch,’ she said. It was the kind of thing people said in films and in plays on telly. It worked for them, perhaps it would for her too. She gave him a smile much braver and more confident than she felt inside.
    ‘Lunch?’ He laughed in a short bark. ‘Lord, Helen, I don’t know what kind of lifestyles you think we live down here …’ He broke off, looking at her disappointed face.
    ‘Aw hell, I’ve not had lunch out for years.’
    ‘I never had,’ Helen said simply.
    That did it.
    They went to an Italian restaurant which was almost dark like night and there were candles on the table.
    Every time Helen tried to bring up the subject of her father he skirted around it. She knew that in those television series about big business they always came to the point at the coffee stage.
    There was no coffee. There was a Zambucca. A liquorice-tasting liqueur. With a little coffee bean in it and the waiter set it alight. Helen had never seen anything so marvellous.
    ‘It’s like a grown-up’s birthday cake,’ she said delightedly.
    ‘You’re fairly grown up for seventeen,’ Frank said. ‘Or is it older?’
    This was to her advantage, if he thought she was older than sixteen he would listen better. Take her more seriously.
    ‘Almost eighteen,’ she lied.
    ‘You’ve been around, despite the schoolgirl get-up,’ he said.
    ‘I’ve been around,’ Helen said.
    The more travelled he thought she was, the more he would listen when the time came to talk.
    The time didn’t come to talk.
    He had been affectionate and admiring and had patted her cheek and even held her face up to the candlelight to see if there was any telltale ring of red wine around her mouth before she went back to school.
    ‘I’m not going back to school,’ Helen said very definitely. She looked Frank Quigley straight in the eye. ‘You know that, and I know that.’
    ‘I certainly hoped it,’ he said, and his voice sounded a bit throaty. Something about the way he stroked her cheek and lifted her hair made it difficult to talk about her father’s job, Helen had felt it would somehow be wrong to bring the subject up when he was being so attentive. She was relieved when he suggested they go back to his place so that they could talk properly.
    ‘Do you mean the office?’ She was doubtful. The dragon would keep interrupting.
    ‘I don’t mean the office,’ he said very steadily, looking at her. ‘You know that and I know that.’
    ‘I certainly hoped it,’ she said, echoing his words.
    The apartment block was very luxurious. Mother had always said she could not understand why Frank Quigley hadn’t bought himself a proper house now that he was a married man. But then he probably had expectations of the big white house with the wrought-iron gates and the large well-kept gardens. The house of the Palazzos.
    But Mother couldn’t have known how splendid the flat was. Flat wasn’t the word for it, really. It was on two floors, there was a lovely staircase leading up to a floor which had a big balcony with chairs and a table outside, the balcony ran along the whole length of the place, past the sitting room and the bedroom.
    They went out the sitting room door to look at the view from the balcony. And Helen’s heart lurched with a sudden realization as they left the balcony to return indoors through the bedroom.
    Her hand went to her throat in an automatic gesture of fright. ‘Your wife …?’ she said.
    Long long afterwards when she played it back in her mind, she thought of all the things she could have said, should have said, might have said. How had it been that the only thing which
did
come to her to say was something that could obviously be taken to mean that she was willing and enthusiastic, but just afraid of