by Maeve Binchy
“What were you good at? You told them an old man told you that everyone should be really good at some one thing. Did you just make that up?”
“No, indeed I did not.”
“So?”
“So I became very, very good at stain removal,” Mr. Mangan said.
Kate took a deep breath.
“I realize I may sound hectoring and overintrusive, but please do not make a fool of me,” she said.
“You asked me my area of excellence, that is it.” He spoke simply and pleasantly.
All around them others were dying to join in their conversation—Kevin the antiques dealer, Brian the dentist, Martin the barrister, and her own husband, Hugh, who could not have been more pleased if he had Frank Sinatra as a guest.
But by his body language alone, Mr. Mangan managed to exclude them all, even the lovely Renata.
“Stains?” she said.
“Stains,” Mr. Mangan repeated. “You have no idea how pleased people are to know that you make a hardened stain soft and much easier to remove by applying glycerin, and where to use alcohol and where to use white vinegar. You can make a paste of vinegar, salt, and flour and your brasses will just gleam. My landlady was very grateful for this piece of information. Very grateful indeed,” he said, with a look in his eye that seemed to speak of hours and hours of enthusiastic gratitude shown by the landlady in a narrow bed.
“And you think this is the secret of the universe?”
“Why are you so angry with me, Kate?”
“Life isn’t as simple and blokish as you think it is,” she said in spite of herself.
“For blokes it often is,” he said simply. “They don’t think the whole thing out in the convoluted ways that women do. That’s why you often think we are insensitive. There’s no need to worry so much and be manipulative; men are basically schoolboys, and all they want is a bit of hope and enthusiasm and information.”
Kate’s face must have shown how little she believed him, and how great a manipulation and game plan she felt was needed to cope with the male psyche and the dangers that lurked everywhere.
“Why did you stay teaching in an elitist school in a one-horse town for so long if you know so much?”
“I liked them; I still like them. Just because their parents have money to send them to a boarding school doesn’t mean that they have to be monsters. They’re as decent as anyone else.”
Perhaps he was right, Mr. Mangan. Perhaps men were basically simple. But he didn’t know how much you had to worry about these days, when marriages weren’t written in stone, and when fellows of forty needed outside reassurance.
Mr. Mangan seemed to realize that it was time to join the general conversation again. But before he did, he said what a nice party it was and what a delightful lady Renata was, he would be taking her home and seeing her again.
“And telling her how to polish her brasses, no doubt?” Kate said, almost giddy with a huge sense of relief.
“No, but she does have nice jewelry and I could tell her that porous stones should not be immersed in water, just polished with a chamois, but that others should be cleaned in a mild washing-up liquid. She might like to know that.”
Renata would love that, Kate realized, just as the landlady and many others had loved this strange man who was no saint and no guru but who liked people for what they were.
A Tactful Conversation
When Beth met Larry he had a picture of his wife and toddlers in his office. A very posed picture: toothy smile from the blond wife, lots of smocking on the children’s dresses.
A real trophy picture, she thought, as she glanced at it from time to time.
And then, as the years went on and Beth ceased to be Larry’s secretary, but became his personal assistant, the photograph changed. The children were now seven and eightish, well-cut straight hair, expensive casual clothes, arms draped around Mummy, who looked as toothy and lineless as before.
Interesting that the smile was exactly the same.
Heigh-ho, little to worry about except spend the money that Larry was bringing home in ever-increasing amounts.
By the time Beth and her longtime love, Martin, had said good-bye, the picture had changed again.
Just the girls this time.
No wife.
No one commented. Beth ran her own department in the travel company now; she was nobody’s assistant. She didn’t have coffee with the girls who might have giggled about the disappearance of Larry’s wife.
It was interesting, really, that she didn’t feel free to ask him herself.
After all, they had a drink together almost every evening.
But then she had never told him about Martin, about all the false stops and starts, about the endless discussions on parenthood, the rows about commitment, the dizzy mornings in bed on Sundays, about the maddening way he had of stepping out of his clothes and leaving them on the floor and leaving ashtrays all over the place.
Beth and Larry talked about the business and how to improve it, about their rivals, about new destinations and dodgy carriers, and ticket prices and the opera, and football and hanging baskets. The company had competitions each month to see who could provide the best display. It had often been written up in the papers—a travel company that really looked festive.
They never talked about her Martin who had gone, and his Jane who had disappeared from the photo frame.
People always said that Beth and Larry had been an item for years; that it had been going on since she arrived in the office.
She had always carried a torch for him, they said, and funny how she managed to get such rapid promotion. Well, it all figured, didn’t it?
But it wasn’t true. Beth never thought about him in that way until shortly after she heard about Jane.
So in fact she was utterly blameless, had no part in the breakup and certainly had nothing to hide.
But only Beth and Larry knew that.
Jane told Larry one weekend that she was tired of his office flings, his cheap behavior, and the way he ignored her.
She said she was going to get a divorce and make sure he saw as little of the girls as possible.
Larry said, hand on heart, he had been in a few foolish situations while on conferences or press trips abroad, but there was nothing ongoing, and nothing that was worth talking about. Jane said she was not easy to fool, that he was hardly ever home before nine o’clock at night. Larry said that was because Jane had insisted on living in deepest Sussex and you couldn’t get home any earlier. But somehow they knew it was over.
And later Larry learned that Jane had a new friend, a man who ran a country club, a man who played tennis and was sociable.
They would marry when Jane was free.
Beth knew none of this.
Not for a long time.
She did know that Larry was suggesting that they have two drinks each evening and sometimes suggested supper as well. But it was always so businesslike and connected with work or whatever they had been talking about. She didn’t make any deductions.
After three weeks of this patter she asked, without guile: “Is Jane away at the moment?”
“No, I’m away at the moment, as it happens.”
“Oh.”
They looked at each other with the same solidarity that had always been there. Like the time the brochures had all been printed with last year’s prices, or the day the dignitary came to open their building and had been refused admittance by security.
“Yes,” said Larry.
“Will it be for a bit or forever?” Beth asked.
“Forever, I think.”
“We’ll survive, we always do.” She spoke as if it was the company that would survive, but it had a different meaning.
“You and I will always survive as friends,” he said.
“I know.” There was a lump in her throat, and, looking at him, Beth knew that it was very important that they did. He was such a dear friend and such a good man. She asked him no more abou
t Jane; they talked football teams and whether to get more impatiens for the basket near the door. If you had them in huge clusters they were hard to beat. They talked of their autumn campaign and they said good-bye outside the restaurant.
Beth hadn’t asked him where he stayed.
Larry hadn’t told her.
Six weeks later Larry and Beth went back to the apartment he had rented near work and he cooked her supper.
Then he said it was a pity to go all the way home since they would be so near work in the morning and Beth said she had brought a change of clothes just in case.
And then everything moved very quickly and they couldn’t understand why it all hadn’t happened before.
And he told her about the two great loves of his life: his daughters, Lara and Anna. They were fourteen and fifteen.
“They will adore you,” Larry said.
“They will hate me,” Beth said.
He was mystified; why would they hate Beth? She had nothing to do with his breakup with their mother. After all, their mother had a new friend. It didn’t stop anyone loving them.
But Beth hadn’t got to be so senior in the travel business without understanding a little of the world.
“Let’s not worry about Lara’s and Anna’s feelings about me now,” she said. “You must build up your own relationship with them and never let them think they are forgotten. That has to be the most important thing.”
And in the months that followed Beth made huge efforts to keep Larry in touch with his girls.
She kept dreaming up new things for them to do, places to go, and even suggested that he take them to his flat and let them cook him a meal.
She would install all the ingredients for something simple and teach Larry how to make it, then he would let the girls make it for him.
They loved it, he told her, cooking for their dad.
She encouraged him to get them to choose a shirt for him, or to take him to get his hair cut. They would be involved still in his life if they did this.
It all worked very well, and, as she knew they would search his flat for evidence of another woman, she made sure that they found none. The time wasn’t right yet. Larry told her that truly he had never got on so well with his daughters. They were even going to go on holiday with him.
He would take them to Greece.
“Why can’t you come?” he begged her.
“It’s too soon, Larry; please believe me.”
“But they’ll have to know sometime. We are going to get married, aren’t we?”
“Of course, but later. Let them know they have you. Then they won’t resent sharing you.”
He grumbled, but agreed. The week was very long without him. Beth worked all the hours that she was awake. She was determined that she would feel no self-pity.
He returned suntanned and happy.
The girls had told him that they had never had a better holiday.
They had stopped attacking him for leaving home and ruining their lives. They told him secrets and stories of their own lives.
They told him that their mother and the man from the club drank lots of gin and laughed a lot and they argued a lot.
Lara had even asked him, “Why don’t you get a sort of aging girlfriend, Daddy?” and Larry said that he might.
Anna had said, “Don’t have any children, though, we’d hate that,” so Larry said he would take that on board.
Beth wanted to crush them both under a large machine, but she knew that Larry loved them.
“Aren’t they marvelous?” she said insincerely, and was rewarded with a look of such devotion that it nearly broke her heart.
“I don’t deserve to be so happy,” said Larry, who was regarded in the trade as a businessman with a highly developed killer instinct.
After the divorce Jane married the man from the club. His name was hardly ever mentioned by Larry—not because he couldn’t bear to, but because he didn’t think of him as a person, only someone connected to a place with tennis courts, swimming pools, and miniature golf.
The girls seemed less than overjoyed with their new life.
“He’s very boring, Daddy,” Lara confessed.
“And he’s not really interested in us,” Anna added.
Perhaps, Larry said, it was now time to tell the girls the good news that their father had found a wonderful person who really would be interested in them.
Again Beth urged caution.
“Introduce me as a friend first,” she begged.
They agreed that Beth should join them by accident as it were, in a bookshop, and they should all go and have a pizza.
It seemed pretty forced, but it was better than what Larry wanted, which was a huge announcement of love and happiness and devotion.
Beth went to the assignation with no great hopes.
It didn’t matter what she wore; the girls would hate her.
There was no point in being interested in them, they wouldn’t like that; it would be called prying or interfering. Just as objectionable as the man from the club.
She went along, hands in pockets, slouched and prepared for the worst.
She knew them well from their pictures, not just the pretty, pretty ones, but the dozens of snaps that Larry took on his outings with them.
She could recognize the more outgoing Lara and the more mutinous Anna. Teenagers who had thought that their life was secure until this year.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “Hello, Larry, fancy seeing you here of all places.”
She said the words like a very poor actress in a school play.
Anna’s eyes narrowed.
“Girls,” said Larry, “you won’t believe this, but do you know who has just walked in?”
“Your ex-secretary,” Lara said. Larry and Beth looked at her, mouths open, faces riddled with guilt.
“How did you know?” Larry asked eventually.
“Mum said you’d been having an affair with her for years, but that it was probably over by now,” Lara said.
“Run its course was what she said,” Anna corrected.
Larry fought for words. “We weren’t having an affair…not then,” he added lamely.
Lara shrugged, Anna went back to the book she had been leafing through.
“And anyway, Beth isn’t a secretary, she is a senior manager.”
“That must have been difficult…to become a manager,” Anna said.
Beth looked at Larry, the man she loved more than anyone else in the world, and his poor anguished face.
There was a big, tall pile of books placed precariously on a high shelf. She wondered if she could knock it so that it would hit both girls instantly. Or would she risk just injuring them and spending a lifetime visiting them in hospital?
If she walked out, it meant walking out on Larry.
If she stayed it would mean a lifetime of this.
This was a problem of greater magnitude than any she and Larry had faced and solved over the years.
And she couldn’t enlist his help because he was blinded by love for all of them. This was where she was all on her own.
She began to speak very slowly and quietly, as if she were talking to foreigners in a reading room.
“Your father and I have only become close since he and your mother separated, but I know that doesn’t make much difference to you—”
“Too true,” said Lara.
“She would say that, wouldn’t she?” Anna said.
“But your father loves you both so much,” Beth hissed through clenched teeth. She so much wanted to say that the Lord knew why, and it was a grave fault in an otherwise sane man.
“He loved us so much he ran off with you!” Anna said.
Larry began to splutter.
Beth interrupted. “Larry, leave it. Dates, times, details have nothing to do with it. They couldn’t care less.”
“But it’s so unfair, unfair to you…”
He was making it worse.
Without realizing it, he
r voice raised a notch.
“Anna, Lara, I’m just going to say this once. I know how you feel. Yes, I do. My father left when I was eleven. He used to write twice a year, birthday and Christmas, and after I was seventeen, only at Christmas. I think he forgot when my birthday was. I hated the woman he went off with—I never wanted to hear her name mentioned. I didn’t know until years later that he had gone off with someone totally different. He just met her later on. Now, this is the point. When he telephoned me he used to say, ‘Barbara sends you her love,’ and I used to say, ‘I don’t want Barbara’s love…’ ”
They were looking at her now, the two monsters.
“I don’t think he loved me very much, my father. I mean, he can’t have if he only got in touch twice a year. It’s different for you. But whatever bit of love my father did have for me I sure managed to drive it away by all this grousing about Barbara.”
Beth was serving aces; there was no response from the other side.
“And so know this: I will love your father always, and when you are grown up and busy and have lives of your own, and don’t want to give up Saturdays for him, you’ll be damn glad that he has some aging bit on the side as you’ll still call me, to look after him…And I won’t ask him to choose between us. I wouldn’t dare. I think there’s enough room there for all of us. In different places and at different times.
“If we get married, I will not want to be part of your awful, boring teenage lives. I hated it myself and I am not going through it again for anyone, least of all for two youngsters who dislike me—and I may or may not have my own children. That is my business and your father’s business and it has nothing to do with you.
“So I think we all know where we stand now. It’s up to you if you want to make it an issue; you or me. It’s too big a gamble, girls—you might lose. Who would you have then? Only one parent when you could have two. And suppose you win? Could you take on the responsibility of him looking miserable and wretched and lonely? How could you make it up to him?
