Read Circle of Friends Online

Authors: Maeve Binchy

Circle of Friends (3 page)

BOOK: Circle of Friends
8.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Perhaps Eve knew all the time, maybe she had been in the shop when Mother was buying all this … all this horrible stuff. How awful that Eve knew before she did. And yet Eve had never had anything new, she knew that whatever dress
she
got for today would be a reject. She remembered the way Eve had said “They got you something new anyway.” She would never let them guess how disappointed she was. Never.

The rest of the day wasn’t very clear to Benny because of the heavy cloud of disappointment that seemed to hang over the whole proceedings. For her anyway. She remembered making the right sounds and moving like a puppet as the party began. Maire Carroll arrived wearing a proper party dress. It had an underskirt that rustled. It had come from America in a parcel.

There were games with a prize for everyone. Benny’s mother had bought cones of sweets in Birdie Mac’s shop, each one wrapped in different colored paper. They were all
getting noisy but the cake had to be delayed until Mr. Hogan returned from the shop.

They heard the Angelus ringing. The deep sound of the bells rolled through Knockglen twice a day, at noon and at six in the evening, great timekeepers as much as reminders to pray. But there was no sign of Benny’s father.

“I hope he wasn’t delayed ramishing on with some customer today of all days,” Benny heard her mother say to Patsy.

“Not at all Mam. He must be on his way. Shep got up and gave himself a good stretch. It’s always a sign that the master is heading home to us.”

And indeed he was. Half a minute later Benny’s father came in full of anxiety.

“I haven’t missed it, we’re not too late.”

He was patted down and given a cup of tea and a sausage roll to bolster him up while the children were gathered and the room darkened in anticipation.

Benny tried not to feel the rough wool of the jumper at her neck. She tried to smile a real smile at her father, who had run down the town to be here for the big moment.

“Do you like your outfit … your first entire outfit?” he called over to her.

“It’s lovely, Father, lovely. Do you see I’m wearing it all.”

The other children in Knockglen used to giggle at Benny for saying “Father.” They used to call their fathers Daddy or Da. But by now they were used to it. It was part of the way things were. Benny was the only one they knew without brothers and sisters, most of them had to share a mam and a dad with five or six others. An only child was a rare occurrence. In fact they didn’t know any, except for Benny. And Eve Malone of course. But that was different. She had no family at all.

Eve was standing near Benny as the cake came in.

“Imagine that’s all for you,” she whispered in awe.

Eve wore a dress that was several sizes too big for her. Sister Imelda, the only nun in the convent who was good with the needle, had been in her sickbed so a very poor job had been done on taking up the hem. The rest of it hung around her like a curtain.

The only thing in its favor was that it was red and obviously new. There was no way that it could be admired or praised, but Eve Malone seemed to have risen above this. Something about the way she stood in the large unwieldy garment gave Benny courage. At least her horrible outfit fitted her, and though it was far from being a party dress, let alone the dress of her dreams, it was reasonable, unlike Eve’s. She put her shoulders back and smiled suddenly at the smaller girl.

“I’ll give you some of the cake to take back if there’s any left over,” she said.

“Thanks. Mother Francis loves a slice of cake,” Eve said.

Then it was there, the blurry light of the candles and the singing happy birthday and the big whoosh … and the clapping and when the curtains were open again Benny saw the thin young man that her father had been shaking hands with. He was far too old for the party. They must have brought him back to tea with the grown-ups who would come later. He was very thin and pale, and he had a cold hard stare in his eyes.

“Who was he?” Eve asked Benny on Monday.

“He’s the new assistant come to work with my father in the shop.”

“He’s awful isn’t he?”

They were friends now, sitting on a school-yard wall together at break.

“Yes, he is. There’s something wrong with his eyes I think.”

“What’s his name?” Eve asked.

“Sean. Sean Walsh. He’s going to live in the shop.”

“Ugh!” said Eve. “Will he go to your house for meals?”

“No, that’s the great thing. He won’t. Mother asked him to come to Sunday lunch and he made some awful speech about not assuming, or something.”

“Presuming.”

“Yes, well whatever it is he’s not going to do it and it seems to mean coming to meals. He’ll fend for himself he said.”

“Good.” Eve approved of that.

Benny spoke hesitantly.

“Mother said …”

“Yes?”

“If you’d like to come anytime … that would be … it would be all right.”

Benny spoke gruffly as if fearing the invitation would be spurned.

“Oh, I’d like that,” Eve said.

“Like to tea on an ordinary day, or maybe midday dinner on a Saturday or Sunday.”

“I’d love Sunday. It’s a bit quiet here on Sundays, a lot of praying you see.”

“Right, I’ll tell her.” Benny’s brow had cleared.

“Oh, there is one thing though …”

“What is it?” Benny didn’t like the intense look on Eve’s face.

“I won’t be able to ask you back. Where they eat and I eat, it’s beyond the curtain you see.”

“That doesn’t matter at all.” Benny was relieved that this was the only obstacle.

“Of course, when I’m grown up and have my own place, you know, my cottage, I could ask you there,” Eve said earnestly.

“Is it really your cottage?”

“I told everyone.” Eve was belligerent.

“I thought it might only be a pretend cottage,” Benny said apologetically.

“How could it be pretend? It’s mine. I was born there. It belonged to my mother and my father. They’re both dead, it’s mine.”

“Why can’t you go there now?”

“I don’t know. They think I’m too young to live on my own.”

“Well, of course you’re too young to live on your own,” Benny said. “But to visit?”

“Mother Francis said it was sort of serious, my own place, my inheritance she calls it. She says I shouldn’t be treating it as a dolls’ house, a playing place when I’m young.”

They thought about it for a while.

“Maybe she’s right,” Benny said grudgingly.

“She could be.”

“Have you looked in the windows?”

“Yes.”

“Nobody’s gone and messed it all up on you?”

“No, nobody goes there at all.”

“Why’s that? It’s got a lovely view down over the quarry.”

“They’re afraid to go there. People died there.”

“People die everywhere.” Benny shrugged.

This pleased Eve. “That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“So who died in the cottage?”

“My mother. And then a bit later my father.”

“Oh.”

Benny didn’t know what to say. This was the first time Eve had ever talked about her life. Usually she flashed back with a Mind Your Own Business, if anyone asked her a question.

“But they’re not in the cottage, they’re in heaven now,” Benny said eventually.

“Yes, of course.”

There seemed to be another impasse.

“I’d love to go and look through the window with you sometime,” Benny offered.

Eve was about to reply when Maire Carroll came by.

“That was a nice party, Benny,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t know it was meant to be fancy dress though.”

“What do you mean?” Benny asked.

“Well, Eve was in fancy dress, weren’t you Eve? I mean that big red thing, that wasn’t meant to be ordinary clothes was it?”

Eve’s face tightened into that hard look that she used to have before. Benny hated to see the expression come back.

“I thought it was quite funny myself,” Maire said with a little laugh. “We all did when we were coming home.”

Benny looked around the school yard. Mother Francis was looking the other way.

With all her strength Benny Hogan launched herself off the wall down on Maire Carroll. The girl fell over, winded.

“Are you all right Maire?” Benny asked, in a falsely sympathetic tone.

Mother Francis came running, her habit streaming behind her.

“What happened child?” She was struggling to get Maire’s breath back, and raise her to her feet.

“Benny pushed me …” Maire gasped.

“Mother, I’m sorry, I’m so clumsy, I was just getting off the wall.”

“All right, all right, no bones broken. Get her a stool.” Mother Francis dealt with the panting Maire.

“She did it purposely.”

“Shush, shush, Maire. Here’s a little stool for you, sit down now.”

Maire was crying. “Mother, she just jumped down from the wall on me like a ton of bricks … I was only saying …”

“Maire was telling me how much she liked the party Mother. I’m so sorry,” Benny said.

“Yes, well Benny, try to be more careful. Don’t throw yourself around so much. Now, Maire, enough of this whining. It’s not a bit nice. Benny has said she was sorry. You know it was an accident. Come along now and be a big girl.”

“I’d never want to be as big a girl as Benny Hogan. No one would.”

Mother Francis was cross now. “That’s quite enough Maire Carroll. Quite enough. Take that stool and go inside to the cloakroom and sit there until you’re called by me to come away from it.”

Mother Francis swept away. And as they all knew she would, she rang the bell for the end of break.

Eve looked at Benny. For a moment she said nothing, she just swallowed as if there were a lump in her throat.

Benny was equally at a loss, she just shrugged and spread out her hands helplessly.

Suddenly Eve grasped her hand. “Someday, when I’m big and strong, I’ll knock someone down for you,” she said. “I mean it, I really will.”

“Tell me about Eve’s mother and father,” Benny asked that night.

“Ah, that’s all long ago now,” her father said.

“But I don’t know it. I wasn’t there.”

“No point in raking over all that.”

“She’s my friend. I want to know about her.”

“She used not to be your friend. I had to plead with you to let her come to the party,” Mother said.

“No, that’s not the way it was.” Benny couldn’t believe now that this was so.

“I’m glad the child’s coming here to her dinner on Sunday,” Eddie Hogan said. “I wish we could persuade that
young skinnymalinks above in the shop to come too, but he’s determined not to trespass, as he calls it.”

Benny was pleased to hear that.

“Is he working out well, Eddie?”

“The best you ever saw, love. We’ll be blessed with him I tell you. He’s so eager to learn he almost quivers like Shep there, he repeats everything over and over again, as if he’s learning it off by heart.”

“Does Mike like him?” Benny’s mother wanted to know.

“Ah, you know Mike, he likes nobody.”

“What does he object to?”

“The way Sean keeps the books. God it’s simple to understand, a child could do it, but old Mike has to put up a resistance to everything. Mike says he knows everyone’s measurements, and what they paid and what they owed. He thinks it’s like a kind of insult to his powers to write things down.”

“Couldn’t you keep the books, Mother?” Benny suggested suddenly.

“No, no, I’d not be able to.”

“But if it’s as simple as Father says …”

“She’d well be able to but your mother has to be here, this is our home, she runs it for you and me, Benny.”

“Patsy could run it. Then you wouldn’t have to pay Sean.”

“Nonsense, Benny,” her father said.

But she wasn’t to be stopped. “Why not? Mike would like Mother being in there. Mike loves Mother, and it would be something for Mother to do all day.”

They both laughed.

“Isn’t it great to be a child,” said her father.

“To think that the day isn’t full already,” agreed her mother.

Benny knew very well that her mother’s day was far from full. She thought that it might be nice for Mother to be
involved in the shop, but obviously they weren’t going to listen to her.

“How did Eve’s parents die?” she asked.

“It’s not a thing to be talking about.”

“Why? Were they murdered?”

“Of course not.” Her mother sounded impatient.

“Why then …?”

“Lord, why, why, why,” her father sighed.

“At school they’re always telling us to ask why. Mother Francis says that if you have a questioning mind you get to know all the answers.” Benny was triumphant.

“Her mother died giving birth, when Eve was being born. And then a bit later, her poor father, may the Lord have mercy on him, went out one evening with his wits scattered and fell over the cliff into the quarry.”

“Wasn’t that desperate!” Benny’s eyes were round with horror.

“So, it’s a sad story, all over long ago, nearly ten years ago. We don’t start bringing it all up over and over.”

“But there’s more to it isn’t there … there’s a kind of secret.”

“Not really.” Her father’s eyes were honest. “Her mother was a very wealthy woman, and her father was a kind of handyman who helped out in the convent, and did a bit of work up at Westlands. That caused a bit of talk at the time.”

“But it’s not a secret or a scandal or anything.” Annabel Hogan’s face was set in warning lines. “They were married and everything in the Catholic Church.”

Benny could see the shutters coming down. She knew when to leave things.

Later she asked Patsy.

“Don’t ask me things behind your parents’ back.”

“I’m not. I asked them, and this is what they told me. I just wanted to know did you know any more. That’s all.”

“It was before I came here, but I heard a bit from Bee
Moore … Paccy’s sister, she works in Westlands you see.”

“What did you hear?”

“That Eve’s father did a terrible act at the funeral, cursing and shouting …”

“Up in the church, cursing and shouting … !”

“Not
our
church, not the real church, in the Protestant church, but that was bad enough. You see Eve’s mother was from Westlands, from the big house beyond. She was one of the family and poor Jack, that was the father, he thought they’d all treated her badly …”

BOOK: Circle of Friends
8.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

A Life That Matters by Terri's Family:, Robert Schindler
Shark Bait by Daisy Harris
She's So Money by Cherry Cheva
The Devil in Disguise by Martin Edwards
Days of Infamy by Harry Turtledove
Up at the College by Michele Andrea Bowen
Desiring Lady Caro by Ella Quinn