Circle of Friends (32 page)

“I think you’re going to have a deal with Johnny O’Brien yourself,” Nan said to Benny. “He’s been following you around as if you had a magnet somewhere about your person.”

Benny knew only too well what part of her person Johnny O’Brien was following around.

Emily was pleased that her daughter had such nice friends. She had rarely met anyone that Nan knew. They had never been invited to the school plays or concerts like other parents. Nan had never wanted her father to know anything about school activities. It had always been her dread as a child that he would turn up the worse for wear at her convent school. To meet Eve and Benny was a big occasion for Emily Mahon.

“I’d offer you a spray of perfume from the tester, but you all smell so lovely already,” she said.

They said they didn’t smell nearly nice enough. They’d love a splash of something.

They leaned over to Emily, who doused them liberally with Joy.

“The only problem is that you’ll all smell the same,” she laughed. “The men won’t know one of you from the other.”

“That’s good then,” Nan said approvingly. “As a group we’ll have made an impact on them. They’ll never forget us.”

They were aware that a customer had come into the shop and might want to be served.

“We’d better move on Em, we don’t want you sacked,” Nan said.

“It’s a treat to see you. Have a wonderful evening.” Her eyes hated to see them go.

“Don’t hurry on my account,” the man said. “I’m just browsing.”

His voice made Eve turn sharply.

It was Simon Westward. He hadn’t seen her. He had eyes only for Nan.

As usual Nan seemed unaware that anyone was looking at her. She had probably grown up with those looks of admiration, Eve thought, like she herself had grown up with the sound of the convent bell. It became part of the scenery. You didn’t notice it anymore.

Simon did indeed start to browse among the shelves of ornaments and souvenirs, picking some up and examining them, looking at the prices on the boxes.

Emily smiled at him. “Tell me if you want any help. I’m just having a chat here …”

She saw Nan frown at her slightly.

“No, honestly …” He looked straight at Nan.

“Hallo,” he said warmly. “Did I see you in the bar a moment ago?”

“Yes, I was looking for my friends.” Her smile was radiant. “And now I found them.” She spread her hands out to indicate Eve and Benny.

Out of politeness he moved his eyes from Nan to acknowledge them.

“Hallo.” Benny grinned. Simon looked at her startled. He knew her from somewhere certainly, but where? A big, striking girl, very familiar.

He looked at the smaller dark girl. It was his cousin Eve.

“Well, good evening Simon,” she said slightly mocking. It was as if she had the advantage of him. She had already recognized him and had been watching while he ogled her friend.

“Eve!” There was warmth in his smile. Swift warmth.

Now he remembered who Benny was also. She was the Hogan girl.

“Small world, all right,” Eve said.

“Are you all going to a dance?”

“No, heavens no. This is just our casual Friday night out. We dress up a lot in UCD you know. Not scruffy Trinity students shuffling round in duffel coats.” Her eyes danced, taking the sharpness out of her response.

“I was just going to compliment you and say you all looked splendid but if it’s like this every Friday, then I
have
been missing out on the social scene.”

“Of course it’s a dance, Simon,” Benny said.

“Thank you Miss Hogan.” He couldn’t remember her name. He waited expectantly to be introduced to Nan, but it didn’t happen.

“Will you be going to see Heather this weekend?” Eve asked.

“Alas no. I’m going to England actually. You really have been frightfully good to her.”

“I enjoy meeting her. She has a lot of spirit,” Eve said. “And she’d need it in that mausoleum.”

“It’s meant to be the best …”

“Oh, it’s about the only place for you lot to send her certainly,” Eve reassured him. But she did imply that if Simon and his lot were less blinkered there would have been many more places to send the child.

Simon let another tiny pause develop, enough for him to be presented to the blond girl if he was going to be. But no move was made.

She didn’t stretch out her hand and introduce herself, and he wasn’t going to ask.

“I must get on with my purchases and leave you all to enjoy the dance,” he said.

“Was it anything in particular?” Emily was professional now in her manner.

“I wanted a gift, a small gift for a lady in Hampshire.” His eyes were resting on Nan as he spoke.

“Something particularly Irish?” Emily asked.

“Yes, not too shamrocky though.”

Nan had been fiddling with a small paperweight made of Connemara marble. She left it back rather pointedly on the shelf.

Simon picked it up.

“I think you’re right.” He looked straight into her eyes. “I think this is a very good idea. Thank you so much.” He ended the sentence on a rising note, where if anyone was going to give a name it would be given now.

“It’s very attractive,” Emily said. “And if you like I could put it in a little box for you.” His eyes were still on Nan.

“That would be lovely,” he said.

Aidan Lynch appeared at the door.

“I know I’m always the specter at the feast, but was there any question of you ladies joining us? It’s not important or anything. It’s just that the people at the door want to
know where the rest of our party is and it’s a question that’s becoming increasingly hard to answer.”

He looked from one to the other.

Nan made the decision.

“We got sidetracked,” she explained. “Come on, Aidan, lead us to the ball.”

She gathered the other two with her like a hen clucking at chickens.

Benny and Eve said their good-byes, and Nan smiled from the door.

“Good-bye, Em, I’ll be seeing you.”

She didn’t say she’d be seeing her tonight, or at home. Simon watched them as they walked with Aidan Lynch toward the ballroom.

“What a very beautiful girl that is,” Simon said.

Emily looked after the three girls and boy walking through the crowded hotel.

“Isn’t she?” said Emily Mahon.

They had a table for sixteen on the balcony. Dancing was well under way when they trooped in. Girls at other tables looked up when they saw Jack Foley, and people craned to see who he was with.

They had no luck in guessing. He went in talking to Sean and Carmel.

Boys at the other tables saw with envy that Jack Foley’s table had Rosemary
and
Nan Mahon. That seemed too much for one party. College beauties should be spread about a bit. Some of them wondered how that goofy Aidan Lynch always seemed to be in the thick of everything, and one or two asked each other who was the very tall girl with the wonderful cleavage.

At their table the plan of campaign was under way. Everyone was drinking a glass of water from the large jug on the table. Then as soon as it was empty the eight boys
would each pour the quarter bottle of gin which they had in their pockets into the jug. For the rest of the evening, only minerals would be ordered. They would ask for more and more Club Oranges, and the gin could be added from the jug.

Nobody could afford hotel prices for spirits. This was the clever solution. But the trick was not to let them remove the jug of so-called water, or worse still, fill it up, thus watering the gin. The table was never to be left empty and at the mercy of waiters.

The bandleader called out that they were to take the floor for a selection of calypsos.

Bill Dunne was first on his feet with his hand out to Rosemary. She had positioned herself near Jack, but that had been the wrong place. She should have sat opposite him, she realized too late. That way he could have caught her eye. With a hard, forced smile she stood up and went down to join the dancers.

Johnny O’Brien asked Benny. She stood up eagerly. Dancing was something she was good at. Mother Francis had employed a dancing teacher who came once a week and they learned the waltz and the quickstep first, but she had also taught them Latin American dancing. Benny smiled at the thought that girls from Knockglen would probably beat any Dublin girls when it came to doing the samba, the mambo or the cha-cha-cha.

They were playing “This is my island in the sun.” Johnny looked with open admiration at Benny.

“I never knew you had such a nice …”

He stopped.

“Nice what?” Benny asked him directly.

Johnny O’Brien chickened out. “Nice perfume,” he said.

It was nice, too, the perfume. It was heady, like a cloud around her. Of course he hadn’t meant perfume at all, but he was right. That was nice also.

Aidan was dancing with Eve.

“This is the first time I’ve been able to hold you in my arms without your beating at me with your bony little fists,” he said.

“Make the most of it,” Eve said. “The bony little fists will be out again if you start trying to dance with me in your father’s car.”

“Were you talking to my father?” Aidan asked.

“You know I was. You introduced me to him three times.”

“He’s all right really. So’s my mother—a bit loud but basically all right.”

“They’re no louder than you are,” Eve said.

“Oh they are. They boom. I just talk forcefully.”

“They talk more directly, normally. Sentences and everything,” Eve said, thinking about them.

“You’re very beautiful.”

“Thank you Aidan. And you look great in a dinner jacket.”

“When are you going to stop fighting this hopeless physical passion you have for me and succumb. Allow yourself to have your way with me.”

“Wouldn’t you drop dead if I said I would?”

“I’d recover pretty quickly, I tell you.”

“Well, it mightn’t happen for a while. The succumbing bit I mean. A good while.”

“That’s the trouble about being brought up by nuns. I might have to wait forever.”

“They weren’t nearly as bad as everyone says.”

“When are you going to take me to meet them?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Why not? I took you to meet
my
family.”

“You didn’t. They just happened to be there.”

“You didn’t arrange for your nuns to rent motorbikes
and roar up to the party. I think that was socially rather inept of you,” Aidan said.

“They couldn’t make it,” Eve explained. “Friday’s their poker night and they just won’t change for anyone.”

Sean and Carmel danced entwined. The music played “Brown skin girl stay home and mind bay-bee.”

“Imagine, that won’t be long now,” Carmel said.

“Another four years,” Sean said happily.

“And we’ve been together four years already if you count the year before Intermediate Cert.”

“Oh, I do count that. I couldn’t get you out of my mind that year.”

“Aren’t we lucky?” Carmel said, holding him tighter.

“Very lucky. Everyone in the room envies us,” said Sean.

“Wouldn’t Sean and Carmel sicken you?” Eve said to Benny as they all went back up the stairs.

“Not much value out of asking them anywhere certainly,” Benny agreed.

“They remind me of those animals in the zoo that keep picking at each other, looking for fleas,” Eve said.

“Don’t Eve,” Benny laughed. “Someone will hear.”

“No, you know monkeys obsessed with each other. Social grooming I think it’s called.”

Back at the table Jack Foley and Sheila were sitting. Jack had elected to watch the jug of gin for the first watch. Sheila was pleased to have been chosen to sit with him, but she would have preferred to be on the dance floor.

Nan came back to the table with Patrick Shea, an architectural student, a friend of Jack and Aidan’s from school. Patrick Shea was hot and sweating. Nan looked as if
she had been dancing on an ice rink in a cool breeze. There wasn’t a sign of exertion on her face.

Benny looked across the table at her admiringly. She was so much in command of every situation and yet her mother was quite shy, and not a confident person at all. Perhaps Nan got it all from her father. Whom she never mentioned.

Benny wondered why Eve hadn’t introduced her to Simon. It was rather gauche not to. If it had been anyone else Benny would have made the introduction herself, but Eve was always so chippy about those Westwards.

Still Nan had said nothing and knowing Nan, if she had wanted an introduction she would have asked for one.

Johnny O’Brien was offering her a glass of orange. Benny took a great gulp of it thankfully and it was only when she had swallowed it she remembered it was full of gin.

She choked it back and saw Johnny O’Brien looking at her admiringly.

“You’re certainly a woman who can hold her drink,” he said.

It wasn’t the characteristic she would most like to be praised for, but at least it was better than having gagged or got sick.

Rosemary had been looking at her.

“I envy you being able to do that,” she said. “I get dizzy after even a little drink.”

She looked around her knowing that there would be silent praise and admiration for this feminine trait.