“Who?” he asked.
“Mrs. Goggin from the tearoom. She’s retiring after almost fifty years here.”
He looked a little blank. “So what?” he said. “You’re not planning on going along, are you?”
“Of course I am.”
“Why?”
“Because, like I just told you, she’s retiring after almost—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He thought about it. “Do you think I should go too?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, would it mean a lot to her if I showed my face?”
I stared at him, trying to decipher his meaning. “Because you’re a TD?” I asked. “Is that what you’re getting at?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “I honestly don’t think she’ll care one way or the other.”
“I’d say she would,” he said, looking half-offended.
“Well, I’m going anyway, so Thursday’s out.”
“Fine,” he said with a dramatic sigh, as if he was a frustrated teenager and not a grown man. “Friday night then. No, wait, I can’t do Friday night. Constituency dinner. And weekends are out for obvious reasons. How’s Monday?”
“Monday’s good,” I said, unsure what the obvious reasons were. “Will we just go from here? When I lock up the library?”
“No. Let’s meet there.”
“What, at the Yellow House?”
“Yes.”
“But if we’re both going to be in the Dáil, wouldn’t it be easier if we—”
“I don’t know what Monday might have in store,” he said. “It’ll be easier if we just meet there.”
“All right.”
In the intervening days, I gave a lot of thought to what I might wear. The truth was that I had no real idea what I was letting myself in for. I had long guessed that the man was gay but he was so much younger than me that I couldn’t quite believe that he would be interested in someone my age. At the retirement party, I confided my dilemma to Mrs. Goggin, who seemed delighted by my quandary.
“Good for you,” she said. “I’m delighted for you, Cyril. You’re far too young to be giving up on meeting someone new.”
“I don’t really see it like that,” I told her. “And I’m not lonely. I know that’s what lonely people generally say but I’m really not. I’m happy with my life just the way it is.”
“Who was it anyway?” she asked. “Which TD?”
I told her his name.
“Oh,” she said, her face falling a little.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, go on, tell me.”
“I don’t want to put you off him.”
“I’m not particularly on him. It’s just a date.”
“Well, he just seems like a sneaky sort to me,” she said. “He strolls in here as if he owns the place and tries to sit at the tables with the ministers without going through me first. The swagger on him and him only in the place a wet weekend! I’ve thought about putting him out a few times. I learned long ago from Mrs. Hennessy—she was the woman who hired me back in the forties—that if I didn’t put my foot down with the TDs from the start, they’d use their country boots to walk all over me. And I’ve put that advice to good use ever since.”
“You ran a tight ship here, that’s for sure.”
“I had to. You’d see less bad behavior in a kindergarten.”
“So you don’t think I should go?”
“I didn’t say that. Just be careful of him, that’s my advice to you. I remember you told me that you lost your…your friend some years ago.”
“I did, yes,” I said. “Bastiaan. And to be honest, in the seven years since then I’ve never had any great longing for sex or a partner. Sorry, you don’t mind me being so blunt, do you?”
“Go ahead,” she said. “Remember, I brought tea up to Charlie Haughey’s office for thirty years, so I’ve seen and heard a lot worse.”
“I suppose I’ve felt for a long time that that side of my life is over,” I said.
“And do you want it to be?”
I had to think about it. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s never brought me anything but torment. Well, at least until I met Bastiaan anyway. I don’t think I can start over with someone new. But maybe there’s a little fire still inside me somewhere. Which is why I’m fretting about the whole thing. But anyway, I shouldn’t be talking about this tonight. It’s your night. You have a great turnout all the same.”
Our heads turned in unison to look around the room. Practically everyone who worked in the Dáil had shown up and the Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, had given a good speech earlier. My TD friend had popped his head in for twenty minutes but, despite standing quite close to me at one point, had completely ignored me, even when I said hello.
“I do,” she said, sounding pleased. “I’ll miss the place. Would you believe I haven’t had a single sick day in forty-nine years?”
“Albert said that earlier. I thought he was making it up.”
“It’s as true as I’m sitting here.”
“So what will you do?” I asked. “Is there a Mr. Goggin somewhere who’ll be happy to have you at home for a change?”
She shook her head. “There isn’t,” she said. “There was never a Mr. Goggin. A long time ago, a priest stood on the altar of a church in West Cork and told me that I’d never find a husband. I thought he was just being a sanctimonious old prig, but as it turns out he was right. Sure I even had to pretend that I was a widow to get the job here.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Different times,” she said. She took a deep breath and looked around to make sure we weren’t being overheard. “I was about to have a baby, you see. So I said my husband had been killed in the war. Mrs. Hennessy knew the truth but if anyone else had found out I’d have been out the door in a flash.”
“Bunch of charmers, aren’t they?” I said. “The priests.”
“I’ve never set any store by them,” she told me. “Not since that day. Anyway, I’ve done well enough all these years without a husband.”
“And your son?” I asked. “How is he doing?”
“My son?” she asked, her smile fading a little.
“Jonathan, isn’t it?”
“Oh Jonathan. Sorry, I…Yes, he’s grand. Well, he was a little sick over the last year or so, but he’s better now. He has a couple of kids of his own, so I’ll be able to help out a little more there now that my time will be my own. I’m looking forward to that at least.”
Before she could say anymore, one of the girls from the tearoom came over and interrupted us, asking Mrs. Goggin whether she would come over and join them all for a photograph.
“Oh, I take a terrible photograph,” she said. “I always end up looking angry in them.”
“We need one for the wall,” insisted the girl. “After all your years of service. Come on, Mrs. Goggin, we’ll all be in it with you.”
She sighed and stood up, nodding her head. “All right,” she said. “One last duty before I’m set free. And look, you should go on that date, Cyril,” she added, turning back to me. “But just be careful of that fella. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I will,” I said. “And good luck to you in your retirement if I don’t see you later.”