The Eleventh Commandment (1998) (53 page)

‘No. They seem to be more interested in my client at the moment,’ admitted Stuart. ‘But if I get him off, that could change.’

‘I hope you don’t get him off,’ said Maggie as she broke a second egg. ‘I think your client is a little creep, and ought to spend the rest of his life in jail.’

‘For stealing $73?’ said Stuart in disbelief.

‘From a defenceless old woman.’

‘But it was the first time.’

‘The first time he was caught, I think you mean,’ said Maggie.

‘You know, Maggie, you would have made a first-class prosecuting counsel,’ said Stuart. ‘You should never have agreed to taking a sabbatical this year - you should have enrolled in law school instead. Mind you, I suspect life imprisonment for stealing $73 might not go down that big with everyone.’

‘You’d be surprised, young man,’ retorted Maggie.

There was a thud on the doormat. ‘I’ll get it,’ said Stuart, rising from the table.

‘Stuart’s right,’ said Tara, as her mother placed an omelette in front of her. ‘You shouldn’t waste your time being an unpaid housekeeper. You’re far too good for that.’

‘Thank you, my darling,’ said Maggie. She returned to the stove and cracked another egg. ‘But I enjoy being with you both. I only hope I’m not outstaying my welcome.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ said Tara. ‘But it’s been over six months since …’

‘I know, darling, but I still need a little longer before I can face going back to Washington. I’ll be fine by the time the fall semester begins.’

‘But you don’t even accept invitations to things you’d enjoy.’

‘Such as?’

‘Last week Mr Moore invited you to
Fidelio
at the Opera House, and you told him you were already going out that evening.’

‘To be honest, I can’t remember what I was doing,’ said Maggie.

‘I can. You sat in your room reading
Ulysses
.’

‘Tara, Ronnie Moore is a sweet man, and I have no doubt that whatever it is he does at the bank, he does very well. But what he doesn’t need is to spend an evening with me being reminded how much I miss your father. And I certainly don’t need to spend an evening with him being told how much he adored his late wife, whatever her name was.’

‘Elizabeth,’ said Stuart, as he returned clutching the morning post. ‘Ronnie’s rather nice actually.’

‘Not you as well,’ said Maggie. ‘The time has come for you both to stop worrying about my social life.’ She placed an even larger omelette in front of Stuart.

‘I should have married you, Maggie,’ he said with a grin.

‘You’d have been far more suitable than most of the men you’ve been trying to fix me up with,’ she said, patting her son-in-law on the head.

Stuart laughed and started sorting out the letters, the bulk of which were for him. He passed a couple over to Tara and three to Maggie, and pushed his own little pile to one side in favour of the sports section of the
Herald
.

Maggie poured herself a second cup of coffee before she turned to her post. As always, she studied the stamps before deciding in which order she would open them. Two of them carried the same portrait of George Washington. The third displayed a colourful picture of a kookaburra. She tore open the Australian letter first. When she had finished reading it, she passed it across the table to Tara, whose smile became broader with each paragraph she read.

‘Very flattering,’ said Tara, handing the letter to Stuart.

Stuart read it through quickly. ‘Yes, very. How will you respond?’

‘I’ll write back explaining that I’m not in the job market,’ said Maggie. ‘But not until I discover which one of you I have to thank for it.’ She waved the letter in the air.

‘Not guilty,’ said Tara.

‘
Mea culpa
,’ admitted Stuart. He had learned early on that it wasn’t worth trying to fool Maggie. She always found you out in the end.

‘I saw the job advertised in the
Herald
, and I thought you were ideally qualified for it. Overqualified, if anything.’

‘There’s a rumour that the Head of Admissions will be retiring at the end of the academic year,’ said Tara. ‘So they’ll be looking for a replacement in the near future. Whoever gets this job …’

‘Now listen to me, you two,’ said Maggie, starting to clear away the plates. ‘I’m on a sabbatical, and come August I intend to return to Washington and continue my job as Dean of Admissions at Georgetown. Sydney University will just have to find someone else.’ She sat down to open her second letter.

Neither Tara nor Stuart made any further comment as she extracted a cheque for $277,000, signed by the Treasury Secretary. ‘Benefit in full’, the attached letter explained, for the loss of her husband while serving as an officer with the CIA. How could they begin to understand what the words ‘benefit in full’ meant?

She quickly opened the third letter. She had saved it till last, recognising the ancient typeface and knowing exactly who had sent it.

Tara nudged Stuart. ‘The annual love letter from Dr O’Casey, if I’m not mistaken,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘I must admit, I’m impressed that he managed to track you down.’

‘So am I,’ said Maggie with a smile. ‘At least with him I don’t have to pretend.’ She tore open the envelope.

‘See you both outside and ready to leave in one hour,’ Stuart said, checking his watch. Maggie glanced over the top of her reading glasses and smiled. ‘I’ve booked a table at the beach cafe for one o’clock.’

‘Oh, you’re so masterful,’ said Tara with an adoring sigh. Stuart was just about to hit her on the head with his newspaper when Maggie said, ‘Good heavens.’ They both looked at her in amazement. It was the nearest they’d ever heard her get to blasphemy.

‘What is it, Mother?’ asked Tara. ‘Is he still proposing, or after all these years has he finally married someone else?’

‘Neither. He’s been offered a job as head of the Mathematics Department at the University of New South Wales, and he’s coming over to meet the Vice-Chancellor before he makes a final decision.’

‘Couldn’t be better,’ said Tara. ‘After all, he’s Irish, handsome, and has always adored you. And as you regularly remind us, Dad only just managed to beat him off in the first place. What more could you ask for?’

There was a long silence before Maggie said, ‘I’m afraid that’s not altogether accurate.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Tara.

‘Well, the truth is that although he
was
handsome, and a magnificent dancer, he was also a bit of a bore.’

‘But you always told me …’

‘I know what I told you,’ said Maggie. ‘And you needn’t look at me like that, young lady. I’m sure you occasionally tease Stuart about that young waiter from Dublin who …’

‘Mother! In any case, he’s now a …’

‘A what?’ asked Stuart.

‘… a lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin,’ said Tara. ‘And what’s more, he’s happily married with three children. Which is more than can be said for most of your ex-girlfriends.’

‘True,’ admitted Stuart. ‘So tell me,’ he said, turning his attention back to Maggie, ‘when does Dr O’Casey arrive in Oz?’

Maggie unfolded the letter again and read out:

‘But that’s today,’ said Stuart.

Maggie nodded before continuing:

She looked up. ‘He’ll be on his way home before we get back from the weekend.’

‘That’s a shame,’ said Tara. ‘After all these years, I would have liked to meet the faithful Dr Declan O’Casey.’

‘And you still could, just,’ said Stuart, glancing at his watch. ‘What time does his plane land?’

‘Eleven twenty this morning,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to miss him. And he doesn’t say where he’ll be staying, so there’s no way I can get in touch with him before he flies home.’

‘Don’t be so feeble,’ said Stuart. ‘If we leave in ten minutes, we might still get to the airport in time to meet his plane. You could invite him to join us for lunch.’

Tara looked across at her mother, who didn’t appear at all enthusiastic about the idea. ‘Even if we do make it, he’ll probably say no,’ said Maggie. ‘He’ll be jetlagged, and he’ll want to prepare for his meeting tomorrow.’

‘But at least you’ll have made the effort,’ said Tara.

Maggie folded the letter, took off her apron and said, ‘You’re right, Tara. After all these years it’s the least I can do.’ She smiled at her daughter, quickly left the kitchen and disappeared upstairs.

In her room she opened her wardrobe and picked out her favourite dress. She didn’t want Declan to think of her as middle-aged - though that was rather silly, because she was, and so was he. She inspected herself in the mirror. Passable, she decided, for fifty-one. She hadn’t put on any weight, but one or two new lines had appeared on her forehead during the last six months.

Maggie came back downstairs to find Stuart pacing up and down in the hall. She knew the car would already be loaded, probably with the engine running.

‘Come on, Tara,’ he shouted up the stairs for the third time.

Tara appeared a few minutes later, and Stuart’s impatience evaporated the moment she smiled.

As she climbed into the car Tara said, ‘I can’t wait to meet Declan. Even his name has a romantic ring to it.’

‘That’s exactly the way I felt at the time,’ said Maggie.

‘What’s in a name?’ said Stuart with a grin as he manoeuvred the car down the drive and out onto the road.

‘Quite a lot when you’re born Margaret Deirdre Burke,’ replied Maggie. Stuart burst out laughing. ‘When I was at school I once wrote a letter to myself addressed to “Dr and Mrs Declan O’Casey”. But it didn’t make him any more interesting.’ She touched her hair nervously.

‘Isn’t it just possible,’ said Tara, ‘that after all these years, Dr O’Casey might turn out to have become amusing, rugged and worldly?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Maggie. ‘I think it’s more likely he’ll be pompous, wrinkled, and still a virgin.’

‘How could you possibly have known that he was a virgin?’ asked Stuart.

‘Because he never stopped telling everybody,’ Maggie replied. ‘Declan’s idea of a romantic weekend was to deliver a trigonometry paper at a maths conference.’

Tara burst out laughing.

‘Though, to be fair, your father wasn’t a lot more experienced than he was. We spent our first night together on a park bench, and the only thing I lost was my slippers.’

Stuart was laughing so much he nearly hit the kerb.

‘I even found out how Connor lost
his
virginity,’ Maggie continued. ‘It was to a girl known as “Never Say No Nancy”,’ she whispered, in mock confidentiality.

‘He can’t have told you that,’ said Stuart in disbelief.

‘No, he didn’t. I would never have found out if he hadn’t been late back from football training one night. I decided to leave a message in his locker, and I found Nancy’s name scratched inside the door. But I couldn’t really complain. When I checked his team-mates’ lockers, Connor had by far the lowest score.’

Tara was now bent double with laughter, and was begging her mother to stop.

‘When your father finally …’

By the time they reached the airport Maggie had exhausted all her stories of the rivalry between Declan and Connor, and was beginning to feel rather apprehensive about meeting up with her old dancing partner after so many years.

Stuart pulled into the kerb, jumped out of the car and opened the back door for her. ‘Better hurry,’ he said, checking his watch.

‘Do you want me to come with you, Mom?’ Tara asked.

‘No, thank you,’ Maggie replied, and walked quickly towards the automatic doors before she had time to change her mind.

She checked the arrivals board. United’s Flight 815 from Chicago had landed on time, at eleven twenty. It was now nearly eleven forty. She had never been so late to meet someone off a plane in her life.

The nearer she got to the arrivals area, the slower she walked, in the hope that Declan would have time to slip away. She decided to hang around dutifully for fifteen minutes, then return to the car. She began studying the arriving passengers as they came through the gate. The young, bright and enthusiastic, carrying surfboards under their arms; the middle-aged, bustling and attentive, clutching their children; the old, slow-moving and thoughtful, bringing up the rear. She began to wonder if she would even recognise Declan. Had he already walked past her? After all, it had been over thirty years since they had last met, and he wasn’t expecting anyone to be there to greet him.

She checked her watch again - the fifteen minutes were almost up. She began to think about a plate of gnocchi and a glass of Chardonnay over lunch at Cronulla, and then dozing in the afternoon sun while Stuart and Tara surfed. Then her eyes settled on a one-armed man who was striding through the arrivals gate.