Free Quentins by Maeve Binchy Page A

looking out for a friend. All I cansay is that I love her, but I wouldn’t be helping anyone or anything by leaving Margery and the boys now. Ella knows everything there is to be known.”
    Deirdre looked almost embarrassed. “I believed him, Ella. I bloody believed him. I even believed him when he told me he was entertaining people from Spain and they had insisted on coming to the nightclub. He does love you. You do have everything.”
    â€œNot everything, Dee. Not the home and the babies,” Ella said.
    â€œDon’t worry about it. Women can have babies at sixty these days,” Deirdre had said cheerfully. “You have over thirty years before you need to start getting broody.”
    As the months went by, Ella felt she had known no other life. Soon those boys would grow up and Don and Ella could think again seriously. But now? It was all fine, so why upset what was working well?
    Don’s part of the study was as tidy as he was. He used a cell phone and got in the habit of moving out into the hall when he answered a call. The reception was better and he didn’t interrupt the television or the music that they listened to. He had a few books on the wall shelves, and business magazines in the rack, but everything else was in a small laptop.
    â€œSuppose you lost it?” she teased him once. “Suppose we had burglars, or it was snatched from you in the street?”
    â€œBackup,” he said simply. “House rule: we copy every single thing from that day’s transaction onto a disc every evening.”
    â€œAnd what do you do with the discs?” She was interested. “Surely you could lose a disc just as easily?”
    â€œWhat have we here, Ella? An investigation, a tribunal?” He laughed, but his eyes weren’t smiling.
    Ella was annoyed with him and showed it. “Sorry, Don. Didn’t know the little woman wasn’t allowed to be interested. Forget it. Forget I even spoke.”
    â€œHey, Ella angel, you’re being a little bit heavy,” he began.
    â€œNo, I’m not. If you asked me a question about school, I’d think you were interested and I’d answer you. I wouldn’t accuse you of being part of a department of education hit squad.”
    â€œI apologize.”
    â€œNo need to. Message received. Don’t ask Don about his work. Okay, I’ll remember.”
    â€œYou’re very hurt,” he said.
    â€œNo, just a bit pissed off. I’ll get over it.”
    â€œCome here, please . . . I beg you.” His eyes were pleading.
    â€œWhat?”
    He opened his little computer. The one that fit in his briefcase. “First my password. I want you to know that.” His face was very serious.
    â€œDon, this is silly.”
    â€œMy password is ‘angel.’ It has been since I met you.” He typed it in and the program sprang to life. “Please, Ella, look at the headings. My life is your life. You are welcome to look at any of these at any time.”
    â€œThat wasn’t what I wanted . . . you were short with me, that’s all.”
    â€œSee, here’s Killiney, all the details about bills and expenses are there. Here’s the boys’ school fees and trust funds under their names, James and Gerald . . . and here’s travel, and here’s Ella.”
    â€œYou have a file on me?” Her voice was a whisper.
    â€œAngel, of course I have.” He pointed to a file called “Brady.”
    She was in tears now, but he took no notice. He wasdetermined to explain everything, show her how open he was being with her.
    â€œThese are the day-by-day transactions in these files. These are the ones we put on disc, and since you wanted to know what we do with the discs, we post them back to the office. We all have little ready-stamped envelopes. Now, Ella, you know the password, anything you want to know is there, but don’t ever tell me again that