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Authors: Maeve Binchy

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BOOK: Circle of Friends
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She tried to think how she would like to hear it herself. Suppose Jack were to tell her that he loved someone else, what would be the best way for her to find out? She would like him to be honest, and tell her directly, no apologies, or regrets. Just the facts. And then she would like him to go away and let her digest it all on her own.

Would it be the same for Sean Walsh?

She looked into the changing pictures and leaping flames of the fire as she spoke. There was a background of her parents’ heavy breathing. The clock ticked, and Shep whimpered a little.

She told Sean Walsh her plans and her hopes. That she would live in Dublin, and she had great hopes that it would all work out.

Sean listened to the news impassively. The part about the person she loved caused him to smile. A crooked little smile.

“Would you not agree that this might be just what they call a crush?” he asked loftily.

Benny shook her head.

“But it’s not based on anything, any shared hopes or plans, like a real relationship is.”

She looked at him astounded. Sean Walsh talking about a real relationship as if he would have the remotest idea what it was.

She was still humoring him. “Well, of course you’re right. It might not work out, but it’s my hope it will.”

The smile was even more bitter. “And does he, this lucky man, know anything about your infatuation. Is he aware of all this … hope?”

“Of course he is. He hopes too,” she said, surprised. Sean obviously thought that she just fancied someone from afar like a film star.

“Ah well, we’ll see,” he said, and he sat looking into the fire with his sad pale eyes.

Patsy had been up in Mossy’s house for the evening wearing her new watch and going through a further inspection by Mossy’s mother. Mossy’s married sister and her husband had come in to give the encounter even further significance.

“I think they thought I was all right,” she told Benny, with some relief.

“Did you think
they
were all right?”

“It isn’t up to me to be having opinions, you know that, Benny.”

Not for the first time Benny wanted to find the orphanage where Patsy had grown up with no hope and no confidence and strangle everyone in it. Patsy wanted to know what time Sean Walsh had left, because she saw him walking around up on the quarry path at all hours. He had looked distraught, she reported, as if he had something on his mind.

Benny wanted to know no more of this. She changed the topic. Were there lights on in Eve’s cottage, she wanted to know.

“Yes, it looked lovely and cozy. She had a little Christmas
crib in the window with a light in it. And there was a tree too, a small tree with lots of things hanging on it.”

Eve had told Benny about the crib, a gift from the convent, and every single nun had made a decoration for the tree as well. Angels with pipe cleaners and colored wool. Stars made out of foil wrapping paper, little pom-pom balls, little figures cut out of Christmas cards and given a stiff cardboard backing. Hours of work had gone into those presents.

The community was alternatively proud and sad that Eve had moved to her own house. But they had grown used to her being in Dublin. In those first weeks they had missed her running through the convent, and sitting up in the kitchen talking to them.

And as Mother Francis said, it was only at the other end of the garden.

Mother Francis never said that to Eve herself. She always stressed that the girl must come and go, using the ordinary path when she wished. It was her house and she must entertain whom she liked.

When Eve asked about having a party, Mother Francis said she could have half the county if she pleased. Eve admitted ruefully that she seemed to be having half of Dublin. Because of her boasting they all thought Knockglen was the place to be.

Mother Francis said that this was only the truth and wondered how Eve was going to cope. She wondered what Eve was going to do about food for half of Dublin.

“I’ve brought a lot of stuff. Clodagh and Benny are going to come in on St. Stephen’s Day and help.”

“That’s great. Don’t forget Sister Imelda would always love to be asked to make pastry.”

“I don’t think I could …”

“You know, I believe they eat sausage rolls all over the world, including Dublin. Sister Imelda would be honored.”

Clodagh and Benny were up at the cottage early.

“A soup, that’s what you want,” Clodagh said firmly.

“I don’t have a big pot.”

“I bet the convent does.”

“Why did I take this on, Clodagh?”

“As a housewarming. To warm your house.” Clodagh was busy counting plates, making lists and deciding where they would put coats. Benny and Eve watched her with admiration.

“That one could rule the world if she was given a chance,” Eve said.

“I’d certainly make a better stab at it than the eejits who are meant to be in charge,” said Clodagh cheerfully.

The Hogans were surprised to see Sean Walsh come in through the gate of Lisbeg on St. Stephen’s Day.

“We didn’t ask him again, today?” Annabel asked, alarmed.

“I didn’t, certainly. Benny may have.” Eddie sounded doubtful.

But nobody had invited Sean Walsh. He had come to have a discussion with Mr. Hogan about business. He had taken a long walk last night up around the quarry and he had sorted everything out in his head. Sean Walsh had a proposition to put to Mr. Hogan, that he should be taken on as a partner in the firm.

He realized that there wasn’t sufficient cash flow to make him a more attractive salary offer. The only solution would be to invite him to be a full partner in the business.

Mario looked on as Fonsie backed the station wagon up to the door and loaded the record player into the back.

“We go back to the peace and the quiet?” he asked hopefully.

Fonsie didn’t even bother to answer. He knew that nowadays anything Mario said was more in the nature of a ritual protest than a genuine complaint.

The cafe was unrecognizable from the run-down place it was when Fonsie had arrived in town. Brightly painted, cheerful, it was attracting all kinds of clientele that would never have crossed its doorstep in the old days. Fonsie had seen that there was an opportunity for morning coffee for an older set, and he had gone all out to get it. This was the time of day when the younger set, the real customers, were tied up at school or working, so the place was almost empty.

Fonsie played old-style music and watched with satisfaction while Dr. Johnson’s wife, and Mrs. Hogan, Mrs. Kennedy from the chemist and Birdie Mac all took to call in for a coffee that was cheaper than Healy’s Hotel in an atmosphere that was distinctly less formal.

And as for the youngsters, he had plans for a magnificent jukebox which would pay for itself in six months. But there would be time enough to explain that to his uncle later. In the meantime he just said that he was lending the player they had to Eve Malone for her party.

“That’s a better place to play it than here,” Mario grumbled. “Up on the quarry is good. It will only deafen the wild birds that fly around in the air.”

“You won’t stay too late at this party now, will you?” Benny’s father was looking at her over his glasses.

It made him look old and fussy. She hated him peering like that. Either look through them or take them off, she wanted to shout with a surge of impatience.

She forced a reassuring smile onto her face.

“It’s the only party there’s ever been in Knockglen,
Father, you know that. I can’t come to any harm, just up at the back of the convent garden.”

“That’s a slippy old path through the convent.”

“I’ll come back by the road then, down through the square.”

“It’ll be pitch-dark,” her mother added. “You might be better coming through the convent.”

“I’ll have plenty of people to come back with me. Clodagh or Fonsie, Maire Carroll even.”

“Maybe I could walk up that way myself about the time it would be ending. Shep, you’d like a nice late night walk wouldn’t you?”

The dog’s ears pricked up at the thought of any kind of walk.

Please let her find the right words. The words that would stop her father walking out in the dark out of kindness and peering through the window at Eve’s party, wrecking it for everyone, not only Benny.

Please could she say the right thing that would stop him in this foolish well-meant wish to escort her safely home.

Nan would know how to cope with this. What would Nan do? Nan always said stick as close to the truth as possible.

“Father, I’d rather if you didn’t come up for me. It would make me look a bit babyish, you know, in front of all the people from Dublin. And it’s the only party that’s ever been given in Knockglen and maybe the only one that ever will be. Do you see how I don’t want to be taken there and collected as if I were a child?”

He looked a bit hurt, as if a kind offer had been refused.

“All right, love,” he said eventually. “I was only trying to be helpful.”

“I know, Father, I know,” she said.

This Christmas Nan’s father had been worse than usual. The festive season seemed to bring him no cheer. The boys were almost immune to him. Paul and Nasey spent very little time in Maple Gardens.

Emily tried to excuse him. She spoke of him apologetically to Nan.

“He doesn’t mean it. If you knew how full of remorse he is after.”

“I do,” Nan said. “I have to listen to it.”

“He’ll be so sorry he upset us. He’ll be like a lamb today.” Em pleaded for understanding.

“Let him be like anything he likes, Em. I’m not going to be here to look at it. I’m going to the races.”

She had rehearsed this outfit over and over. It seemed to be just right. The cream camel-hair suit with the dark brown trimmings, the hat that fitted so perfectly into the blond curly hair. A small, good handbag and shoes that would not sink in the mud. She went to the races on the bus, along with other Dubliners going on a day out.

But while they talked form and record and likely outsiders, Nan Mahon just sat and looked out of the window.

She had very little interest in horses.

It didn’t take her long to find him, and position herself in a place where she could be seen. She stood warming her hands at one of the many coal braziers placed around the enclosure. She appeared to concentrate very much on the heat as she saw him from the corner of her eye.

“How lovely to meet you again, Nan Mahon,” he said. “Where is your supporting group of ladies?”

“What do you mean?” Her smile was warm and friendly.

“It’s only I never see you without a great regiment of women in tow.”

“Not today. I came with my brothers. They’ve gone to the Tote.”

“Good. Can I bear you off to have a drink?”

“Yes. I’d love that, but just one. I must meet them after the third race.”

They went into the crowded bar, his hand under her elbow guiding her slightly.

There were smiles here and there and people calling to him. She felt confident that she was their equal. There were no pitying looks. Not one of those people would ever know the kind of house she had left this morning to get here on the bus. A house where drink had been spilled, where a lamp had been broken, where half the Christmas pudding had been thrown against the wall in a drunken rage. These people accepted Nan as an equal.

Eve looked around her little house with pleasure.

The oil lamps were lit and they gave a warm glow. The fire burned in the grate.

Mother Francis had left what she called a few old bits and pieces around the place. They were exactly the kind of thing that Eve wanted. A big blue vase in which she could put the wild catkins she had gathered. A handful of books to fill a corner shelf. Two slightly cracked china candlesticks for the mantelpiece, an old coal scuttle polished and burnished.

In the kitchen on the old range there were saucepans which must have come from the convent. Nothing much useful had been left from her parents’ time.

Only the piano. Sarah Westward’s piano. Eve ran her fingers over it and wished yet again that she had paid attention and tried to learn when Mother Bernard had been giving her lessons. Mother Francis had wanted so much for Eve to share what must have been a great love of music. Her mother had a piano stool stuffed with sheet music, and books and scores in a cupboard. They had been neatly tidied and kept free of damp by Mother Francis over the years.

BOOK: Circle of Friends
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ads

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