From time to time, Quentin went to see Brother Rooney back at his old school. He brought the man a packet of cigarettes and they would sit on a carved wooden seat or in the greenhouse. The old man with the pale, watery blue eyes would point out proudly some of the changes there had been since Quentin's last visit. The dramatic difference it had made cutting that hedge right back; there were magical things under it that no one had ever seen and now they were flowering away once they had been given the light.
"Did you miss girls when you came here?" Quentin asked him one day.
"Don't they have girls now?" The school had become coeducational in the last couple of years. It had been a big change.
"No, I meant girlfriends. Did you miss that side of things?"
"No, not at all," Brother Rooney said. Tunny, but it never bothered me at all. I never had a girlfriend, couldn't take to it."
"Would you have preferred fellows, do you think?" Quentin knew the old man wouldn't be offended.
"Divil a bit of it, neither one nor the other, a kind of a eunuch, I suppose. But you know, Quentin, that's not as big a loss as people might think."
I suppose it's a positive benefit, if you're in a religious order and taken a vow of chastity," Quentin smiled at him.
"No, I didn't mean that at all. I meant like if you're not taken up by desire for people then you can see beauty more around you. I see all kinds of colours and textures in flowers and trees that I don't think other fellows see at all." He seemed pleased with himself over the way attributes had been handed out. Some got this, some got that.
"You're one of the happiest people I know, Brother Rooney."
"And if you won't be offended and take it the wrong way, I think you're quite like me, Quentin. You see beauty in things too, and you have great enthusiasms. It does my heart good to hear you talking about that restaurant you run."
"Oh, I don't run it, Brother. I only work there."
"Well, you sound as if you did, and that's a great thing."
"Will you come in and see me there one day?"
I'd feel out of place in a fancy restaurant like that. They'd be looking at my nails and everything."
"They would not. Come in and see me one day."
But Quentin knew that Brother Rooney would not make the journey from the garden where he lived and would probably die without ever visiting him. He wondered, was the old Brother right about Quentin being like him? A eunuch, interested in neither men nor women? It could very possibly be true. Anyway, there was no time to think about it today. The restaurant was full.
The legendary afternoon teas were a huge success; tiny warmed scones with a serving of cream and raspberry jam were disappearing rapidly from trolleys. There was hardly room for all the customers.
"Move that old tramp on, Quentin, will you?" Harold Hayward the manager said with a wave at a shabby man in the corner.
"He's not a tramp. He's just a bit untidy," Quentin protested. Perhaps Brother Rooney had been right and this was not the place for a man with grimy hands.
"Move him on anyway. He's only had a pot of tea in the last hour and there's a line forming at the door."
Quentin went to the table. The man looked up at him from a sheaf of papers. A near-empty teapot sat on the table. Harold the manager had been right. This was not a customer from whom they would make much money this afternoon. But it didn't seem a reason to move him on.
Quentin smiled apologetically at the man, who was in his sixties. "I'm sorry to inconvenience you, sir, but as you can see, people are standing in a long queue waiting for tables."
"Are you asking me to get out?" He had bushy eyebrows, a red weather-beaten face and a slightly Australian accent.
"Certainly not! I just wondered, would you mind if I helped you move your papers so that we could let other people share your table?"
"He asked you to move me on, didn't he?" The old man jerked his head at where Harold Hayward stood watching.
"Now we have room for those two ladies who both have walking sticks. They will appreciate it. May I bring them over?" Quentin was charm itself. He replaced the teapot with a fresh one at no extra charge.
The old man outstayed three sets of people who were brought to his table. At the end of the day he asked Quentin if he was part of the Hayward family himself.
"Alas, no," he smiled apologetically. "Just a labourer in the field, as they say."
"Why do you say "alas"? They can't be any great shakes as a family, judging by the face of the guy who looks as if he swallowed four lemons."
Harold Hayward did indeed look a bit sour.
"Oh, I suppose I meant it would have made life much easier for me if I could have joined the family firm. My father is an accountant and he had my name on a door in his place, but I couldn't face it. At least Harold's family are pleased with him."
The old man came in regularly after that and he always sat at one of Quentin's tables. His name was Toby, shortened to Tobe. He had travelled the world, he said, and seen wonderful things. "Have you travelled?" he asked Quentin.
"No. My problem was that since I decided not to go in with my father, I was so determined to make a living, I never gave myself time to go anywhere. I'd love to see the colours in Provence or in Tuscany, and I'd love to go to North Africa. One day, maybe," he smiled sadly.
"Don't leave it too late, Quentin."
"Eventually should be now," Quentin said, thinking of old Brother Rooney.
"There was never a truer word said." Tobe nodded his head vigorously.
There was no doubt that he looked a lot shabbier than the rest of the clientele. Sometimes Quentin would tell him there was this miracle stain remover he had discovered, and when Harold Hayward was not looking, he would attack a particularly noticeable stain on Tobe's chest. Once he handed him a comb and another time he gave him elastic bands to hold back his frayed cuffs. He didn't know why he did this, probably because he wanted to prove Harold Hayward wrong in his attitude. Also, he knew he wasn't offending Tobe, who was totally unaware that he looked rather eccentric and was perfectly agreeable to being brought courteously more into the mainstream.
And work was becoming Quentin's life. He still had few friends apart from the pleasant and casual relationships with those he worked with and served.
His kindness did not go unnoticed. Even his fellow staff were aware of how well he got on with the customers.
"You're very warm to people," Brenda Brennan said to him one day.
She was one of their part-time staff, but a superior girl, cool and elegant, calm in a crisis and always perfectly capable of dealing with whatever the day might pitch at them.
He wished she would take a permanent job there but she told him that she and her husband had dreams of owning their own place.
"That was a nice gesture," she said to him when she had seen him give the odd refill to Tobe without charging.
"Lord, Brenda, it's only hot water and a teabag," Quentin said. "He's happy here watching people come and go. I like his company. You should hear him talk about those orange and purple sunrises they have out in Australia."
"I wonder what sent him out there all those years ago," Brenda said.
"Probably his family." Quentin was thoughtful. "He never talks about them and it's our families who usually upset us most."
His own father and mother barely spoke to each other now. On the few occasions when he went there to try and cook a lunch, the atmosphere was intolerable. Tobe may have gone through something like that years ago. Quentin wondered where he ate when he did eat. He obviously couldn't afford the prices in Hay wards.