Heart and Soul Read Online Free Page A

Isn't that what counts?”
    “So no wedding?”
    “Not yet. You can have the biggest, best wedding in the world later.”
    “Okay, later, then.”
    “What?”
    “I said all right, it's hard for you.
I'm
not going to nag you. Why don't you get that wine you were going to give her and bring it home.”
    “I left it there.”
    “You gave her the wine and left without the divorce? What kind of clown are you, Alan?”
    “I really don't know,” Alan Casey said truthfully.
    Clara had met Alan when she was a first-year medical student and he had been working for his first year in a bank.
    Clara's mother said that there were very few people in the world who did not make money while working for a bank. Alan Casey however, was one of them. He placed rather too much faith in the more speculative and wilder aspects of investment. They never had much material comfort. Alan was always being pipped at the post for some house or some really great property. Clara just saved steadily from her salary. She closed her ears to the unasked-for advice from her mother and her friends. This was her life and her decision.
    Alan had always been the ambitious one: enough was neverenough and there had to be more. That came to include women as well. For a time, Clara pretended it wasn't happening. But then it became too hard and she faced it.
    When Clara and Alan had split up officially, Clara made sure that each of the three bedrooms should be furnished with shelves and desks. This way she and the girls could all work in their own space without interfering with each other. Downstairs was meant to be a more general area. Claras room was cool and elegant. On one side of the room were her bed, dressing table and a large fitted wardrobe. The other half was a workstation with filing cabinets, but it looked like quality furniture rather than cheap office supplies. She had a comfortable leather chair and a good light. She opened a drawer and took out a large box file called CENTER. For three weeks she had been avoiding looking at it. It brought home the realization of all she had lost and the small consolation that had been offered in return. But this was the night she would attack it. Maybe after she watched the nine o'clock news.
    When there had been a special offer on television sets in the huge warehouse, Clara had bought three of them. The girls said she was behaving like some mad exhibitionist millionaire, but Clara thought it well worth the investment. It meant that Adi could watch programs about the planet being in decline, Linda could see pop shows and she, Clara, could relax with costume drama.
    She reached around for the remote control, but then she remembered that Dr. Morrissey had always said that we found excuses to put off doing something that would take our minds off our worries. It was as if we didn't
want
to lose the luxury of worrying. So she opened the large box and looked with some small degree of pleasure at her neat filing system. There was the documentation about the whole nature of the heart clinic, what it was meant to do, how it would be funded, her own role as its first director. There were her own reports of educational visits to four heart clinics in Ireland and three in Britain and one in Germany. Tiring visits all of them, wearying hours touring facilities that would not be appropriate or relevant to her own center. Note taking, head nodding, murmuring approval here, asking questions there.
    She had seen money scrimped here, money wasted there. She had observed no planning, excessive planning, making do with what was already there. Nothing to inspire her. Some idiotic decisions like placing a heart clinic on a third floor in a place without proper elevator access. Like the casual attendance of staff on no regular basis. She had seen duplication of files and reports. She had seen trust and hope among patients who felt that they were learning to manage their disease. But surely you could get that in any good GP's office or an