Echoes by Maeve Binchy Page B

Greinne.” Chrissie laughed at her own wit.
    â€œDidn’t you learn it when you were in our class?”
    Chrissie shrugged. “We might have. I forget. I forget all of it. What’s the point?”
    Clare had gone back to her book.
    â€œI mean it. I’ll tell, and you’ll be in right trouble then. I’ll say you kept me awake with your caterwauling of poetry pretending you understand it. Wait and see. You’ll suffer for it.”
    â€œNo I won’t,” Clare said. “I won’t suffer from it at all, you are the one who’ll suffer. It will be wondered why you do no homework, why you don’t know anything. It might even be wondered what you and Kath and Peggy get up to. You’re not going to say anything, and you know it so will you shut up and let me get this learned so that I can go to sleep.”
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    Angela waited in the surgery. There was only one other patient, old Mrs. Dillon from the hotel. Angela would have thought that the doctor would have visited her privately, but Mrs. Dillon whispered that she had come to see him secretly. She had pretended to her family that she was going to say the thirty days prayer in the church, but in fact she had come to explain that her daughter-in-law was poisoning her. Angela sighed. Poor Dr. Power. He probably got as much of this as Father O’Dwyer did in the confessional. Angela settled down with an old copy of Tatler and Sketch and began to read about the happenings up in Dublin. She was in for a long wait. But in a few moments, Dr. Power was ushering old Mrs. Dillon out the door, and the woman was smiling ear to ear.
    â€œYou’ll have time for the thirty days prayer after all, and say a few Hail Marys for me,” he called out after her.
    â€œSure you don’t need them, Doctor. Aren’t you a walking saint?” called Mrs. Dillon.
    â€œShe’s only saying what’s true.” Angela stood up and walked across the corridor with him.
    â€œNo. I’m a walking liar, that’s all.”
    â€œWhat did you tell her?”
    â€œI told her I was in there during the week inspecting the place for hygiene and I have instruments that could detect poison a mile off. But there wasn’t a trace of it in Dillon’s Hotel. I said that the cold weather often made people think the taste of food had changed, that it was a common belief, then I gave her a bottle of rose-hip syrup and she’s delighted with herself.”
    Angela laughed: he looked like a bold boy who’d been found out telling a fib.

    â€œAnd who’s poisoning you, Angela? Mother Immaculata up at the convent, maybe?”
    â€œNot a bad guess. I think she’d like to a lot of the time. No, it’s not poison. It’s sleep.”
    â€œToo much of it or too little of it?”
    â€œHardly any of it.”
    â€œSince when?”
    â€œThree weeks, now.”
    â€œDo you know what’s causing it? A worry, a problem?”
    â€œYes, I do.”
    â€œAnd is there anything that can be done about it?”
    She shook her head wordlessly.
    He waited, but nothing came. He reached for a prescription pad, shaking his head. “I won’t have you lying awake at night. Of course you can have something. But, Angela, child, it’s no use just knocking yourself out with these.”
    â€œI know. Thank you, Doctor.”
    â€œAnd I’m not always such a blabbermouth, like I was there about old Mrs. Dillon. If it would help to talk about it at all, I could keep it to myself. In fact I usually do.”
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me that, Dr. Power. Don’t I remember always how good you were about my father.”
    But she was resolute. She thanked him and said she would go straight to the chemist now before they closed. She smiled a tired smile at him and he noticed she did indeed have the dark circles of sleeplessness under her eyes. As far as he knew it wasn’t a man, he’d have