Circle of Friends (23 page)

“Yours would have, if they’d stayed round long enough.”

“And if they’d been sane,” Eve said dryly.

Benny sat beside Rosemary at the history lecture. She had never really spoken to her before. She wanted to look at Rosemary’s makeup and wondered was there anything she could learn.

As they waited for the lecturer to arrive they talked idly.

“Knockglen?” Rosemary said. “That’s the second time I heard of that today. Where is it?”

Benny told her, and added glumly that it was too far to be accessible and too near to let you live in Dublin.

“Who was talking about it?” Rosemary puckered up her face trying to think. She often applied a little Vaseline to her eyelashes in the privacy of the lecture hall. It was meant to make them grow. She did so openly in front of Benny, who was no rival that must be kept out of beauty secrets.

Benny watched with interest. Then Rosemary remembered.

“I know. It was Jack. Jack Foley. He was saying that a friend of his fancies someone from Knockglen. It’s not you by any chance.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Benny’s heart was like lead. Rosemary was on such close terms with Jack, and Jack was making a joke out of Knockglen.

“His friend Aidan. You know, goofy Aidan Lynch.
He’s quite witty actually, it sort of makes up for everything else.”

Benny felt her cheeks burning. Is this the way people talked? People like Jack and Rosemary and maybe even Nan for all she knew. Did handsome people have different rules?

“And did Jack approve of whoever Aidan fancied?” she wanted to keep Jack’s name in the conversation, however painful it was.

“Oh yes. He said it was a great place. He’s been there.”

“Really.” Benny remembered every moment of the day that Jack Foley had been in her town in her house in her company. She could probably give a transcript like they did in court cases of every word that had been said.

“He’s really out of this world,” Rosemary confided. “You know, not only is he a rugby star, but he’s bright. He got six honors in his Leaving, and he’s nice.”

So Rosemary had prized out of Jack how well he had done in his exams leaving school, just like she had.

“Are you going out with him?” Benny asked.

“Not yet, but I
will
be, that’s my project,” Rosemary said.

All during the lecture on Ireland under the Tudors Benny sneaked little looks at her neighbor. It was so monstrously unfair that a girl like Rosemary should have a bar of KitKat in her bag and have no spots and no double chin.

And when had she had all these conversations with Jack Foley? In the evenings probably. Or even the early evenings, when poor Benny Hogan was sitting like a big piece of freight on the bus back to Knockglen.

Benny wished she hadn’t eaten the apple. Perhaps what her system had wanted was a complete shock. No food at all after eighteen years of too much food. Maybe the apple had delayed the process.

She looked at Rosemary and wondered was there any hope that she would fail in her project.

“How’s work, Nan?” Bill Dunne prided himself on getting on well with women. He thought that Aidan Lynch’s reputation was quite unjustified. That was fine at school when everyone was jokey. But in University women were there because they were studious. Or because they wanted people to think they were studious. You couldn’t go on trick-acting and making schoolboy jokes to university women. You pretended to take their studies seriously.

Nan Mahon smiled one of her glorious smiles. “I suppose it’s like it is for everyone else,” she said. “When you like the lecturers, when you enjoy the subject, it’s fine. When you don’t, it’s hell, and there’s going to be hell to pay at the end.”

The words themselves were meaningless, but Bill liked the tone. It was warm and almost affectionate.

“I wonder could I take you to dinner one night?” he asked.

He had thought this out carefully. A girl like Nan must get asked to hops, and to pubs and to parties and to cinemas all the time. He wanted to move it one grade up the ladder.

“Thank you, Bill.” The smile was still warm. “I don’t go out very much. I’m a real dull stick. I study a bit during the week, you see. In order to keep up.”

He was surprised and disappointed. He had thought dinner would work.

“Perhaps we could dine at a weekend, then. When you’re not so tied up.”

“Saturdays, I usually go to the debate, and then down to the Four Courts. It’s become a bit of a ritual.” She smiled apologetically.

Bill Dunne wasn’t going to beg. He knew that would get him nowhere.

“I’ll catch you at one of those rendezvous then,” he said, loftily, refusing to let his pique be seen.

Nan’s room became her living quarters. She had an electric kettle there and two mugs. She took her tea with lemon, so there was no need for milk or sugar.

Sometimes her mother came in and sat with her.

“It’s peaceful in here,” Emily said.

“That’s why I wanted it this way.”

“He’s still annoyed.” Nan’s mother sounded as if she were about to plead.

“He has no reason to be Em, I am perfectly polite always. He’s the one who uses the language and loses control of himself.”

“Ah, if only you understood.”

“I do. I understand that he can be two different people. I don’t have to be dependent on his moods. So I won’t be. I won’t sit down there wondering when he’ll come home and what condition he’ll be in.”

There was a silence.

“Neither do you, Em,” Nan said at last.

“It’s easy for you. You’re young and beautiful. You’ve the world ahead of you.”

“Em, you’re only forty-two. You’ve a lot of the world ahead of you.”

“Not as a runaway wife, I wouldn’t.”

“And anyway you don’t want to run away,” Nan said.

“I want
you
to be away from it.”

“I will be, Em.”

“You don’t go out with any young men. You never go out on dates.”

“I’m waiting.”

“What for?”

“For the Prince, the white knight, the Lord, or whatever it was you said would come.”

Emily looked at her daughter, alarmed.

“You know what I meant. Something much better than
here. Something far above Maple Gardens. You meet people amongst your friends, these law students, these young engineers … these boys with fathers who have big positions.”

“That’s only the same as Maple Gardens, except a bit more garden and a downstairs cloakroom.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t held on to this dream just to end up in another Maple Gardens, Em, with another nice fellow who’d turn out to be a drinker like Dad.”

“Hush, don’t say that.”

“You asked me. I told you.”

“Yes, I know. But what do you hope to get?”

“What you told me I’d get, anything I wanted.”

She looked so proud and confident sitting there at her desk, her mug of tea in her hand, her blond hair back from her brow, her face unruffled by the kind of conversation they were having.

“You could too.” Emily felt the belief she had always held in her heart soar back again.

“So there’s no point in going out with the people I don’t want to live amongst. It’s only a waste of time.”

Emily shivered. “There could be some very, very nice people in all that number.”

“There could, but not what you and I want.”

Emily’s glance fell on the desk and amongst Nan’s books and files were magazines,
The Social and Personal, The Tatler, Harper and Queens
. There were even books of etiquette borrowed from the library. Nan Mahon was studying a great deal more than First Arts.

Mrs. Healy looked through the thick net curtains and saw Simon Westward getting out of his car. He had his small stocky sister with him. Perhaps he was going to take her into the hotel for a lemonade. Mrs. Healy had long admired the young Squire as she called him. Indeed she had half
harbored some little notions about him. He was a man of around thirty, within a few years of her own age.

She was a fine substantial widow in the town, a person of impeccable reputation. Not exactly his social class of course, and not the right religion. But Mrs. Healy was a practical woman. She knew that when people were as broke as the Westwards would appear to be, a lot of the old standards might not be as firm as they used to be.

She knew that Simon Westward owed Shea’s since last Christmas for the drink he had bought to cover the hunt and what they called the Boxing Day party. Many a traveler came and had a drink in Healy’s Hotel and spoke indiscreetly because he would have thought that the lofty and distant landlady had not the remotest interest in the tittle-tattle of the neighborhood.

In most cases they would have been correct, but in terms of the Westwards, Mrs. Healy had always been interested. She had grown up in England where the Big House had always been much more a part of the town. It had never ceased to amaze her that back home again in her native land, it appeared that nobody knew or cared about the doings up at Westlands.

To her disappointment the Westwards went into Hogan’s Gentleman’s Outfitters across the road.

What could they want there? Surely they would deal in Callaghan’s up in Dublin, or Elvery’s. But perhaps credit had run out in those places. Maybe they were going to try locally where a man as nice as Eddie Hogan would never ask to see the color of their money before lifting the bale of material down from the shelf and starting to write the measurements into his book.

From the inside of his dark shop, peering through his dark window with its bales of materials and its shutters that never fully opened, Eddie Hogan saw with delight that Simon
Westward and his small sister were coming into the premises. He wished he had time to smarten the place up.

“You’ll never guess …” he began to whisper at Sean.

“I know,” Sean Walsh answered back.

“It’s very dark,” Heather complained, screwing up her eyes to get used to the change from the bright winter sunshine outside.

“Shush.” Her brother didn’t want her to seem rude.

“This is an honor,” Eddie Hogan said.

“Ah, good morning, Mr.… Hogan, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is,” Heather said. “It’s written outside.”

Simon looked annoyed; Heather immediately became repentant.

“Sorry,” she muttered, looking at the ground.

“It is indeed Edward Hogan at your service and this is my assistant, Sean Walsh.”

“How do you do, Mr. Walsh.”

“Mr. Westward.” Sean bowed slightly.

“I’m afraid after all that, it’s only something rather small. Heather wants to buy a present for my grandfather. It’s his birthday. Just a token.”

“Ah yes. Might I suggest some linen handkerchiefs.” Eddie Hogan began to produce boxes of them, and open a drawer where they were stocked singly.

“He’s got more hankies than he knows what to do with,” Heather explained. “And he’s not great at blowing his nose anyway.”

“A scarf, maybe?” Eddie Hogan was desperate to please.

“He doesn’t go out, you see. He’s very, very old.”

“It’s a puzzler all right.” Eddie scratched his head.

“I thought you might have some sort of geegaws,” Simon said, smiling from one man to the other. “It doesn’t really matter what. Grandfather isn’t really in a position to appreciate anything … but … you know.” With a flick
of his head he indicated Heather, who was prowling earnestly around the shop.

Eddie Hogan had now ventured into the whole problem. “Might I suggest Miss Westward, if it’s something just to give your grandfather a feeling of pleasure that you remembered him and marked his birthday, you might think in terms of sweets, rather than clothing.”

“Yes.” Heather was doubtful.

“I know I may appear to be turning business away, but we want to think of what’s best for everyone. A little box of jellies possibly. Birdie Mac would wrap it up nicely and you could get a card.”

Simon looked at him with interest. “Yes, that’s probably much more sensible. Silly of us not to see it. Thanks.”

He must have seen the look of naked disappointment on Eddie Hogan’s face. “Sorry to have bothered you Mr. Hogan, wasting your time and everything.”

Eddie stopped and eagerly looked back at the small dark confident young man.