Silver Wedding

by Maeve Binchy

  An incomplete family picture on the wall.

  They would probably lie and say that he was in Ireland and couldn’t be spared from the farm, the harvest or the shearing or whatever people did on farms in October.

  But Anna knew with sickening clarity that it would be a paper-thin excuse. The Best Man and the Bridesmaid would know there had been a coldness, and the neighbours would know, and the priests would know.

  And the shine would be taken off the silver.

  How to get him back, that was the problem. Or was it? What to get him back for? Perhaps that was a bigger problem.

  Brendan had always been so quiet when he was a schoolboy. Who would have known that he felt this strange longing to go away from the family to such a remote place? Anna had been so shocked the day he told them. Utterly straightforward and with no care about what it would do to the rest of the family.

  ‘I’m not going back to school in September, it’s no use trying to persuade me. I’ll never get any exams, and I don’t need them. I’m going to Vincent. In Ireland. I’ll go as soon as I can leave.’

  They had railed and beseeched. With no success. This is what he was going to do.

  ‘But why are you doing this to us?’ Mother had cried.

  ‘I’m not doing anything to you.’ Brendan had been mild. ‘I’m doing it for me, it’s not going to cost you any money. It’s the farm where Father grew up, I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘Don’t think he’ll make the farm over to you automatically,’ Father had spluttered. ‘That old recluse could just as well leave it to the missions. You could easily find you’ve put in all that graft for nothing.’

  ‘Father, I’m not thinking of inheritances and wills and people dying, I’m thinking of how I’d like to spend my days. I was happy there and Vincent could do with another pair of hands.’

  ‘Well if he does isn’t it a wonder that he never married and provided himself with a few pairs of hands of his own around the place without asking strangers in to him?’

  ‘Hardly a stranger, Father,’ Brendan had said, ‘I am his own flesh and blood, his brother’s child.’

  It had been a nightmare.

  And the communication since had been minimal, cards at Christmas and on birthdays. Perhaps anniversaries. Anna couldn’t remember. Anniversaries. How was she going to assemble the cast for this one?

  The Bridesmaid, as they always called her, was Maureen Barry. She was Mother’s best friend. They had been at school together back in Ireland. Maureen had never married, she was the same age as Mother, forty-six, though she looked younger. She had two dress shops in Dublin – she refused to call them boutiques. Perhaps Anna could talk to Maureen and see what would be best. But a warning bell went off loudly in her head. Mother was a great one for not letting things go outside the family.

  There had always been secrets from Maureen.

  Like the time that Father had lost his job. It couldn’t be told.

  Like the time that Helen ran away when she was fourteen. That was never breathed to Maureen. Mother had said that nothing mattered in the end, everything could be sorted out just so long as family matters weren’t aired abroad, and neighbours and friends weren’t told all of the Doyle business. It seemed to be a very effective and soothing cure when things went wrong, so the family had always stuck to it.

  You would think that Anna should ring Maureen Barry now and ask her as Mother’s oldest friend what was best to do about Brendan and about the anniversary in general.

  But Mother would curl up and die if she thought there was the remotest possibility of any member of the family revealing a secret outside it. And the coldness with Brendan was a big secret.

  There were no family members who could be asked to act as intermediaries.

  So what kind of party? The day was a Saturday, it could be a lunch. There were a lot of hotels around Pinner, Harrow, Northwood, and restaurants and places used to doing functions like this. Perhaps a hotel would be best.

  It would be formal for one thing, the banqueting manager would advise about toasts and cakes and photographs.

  There wouldn’t have to be weeks of intensive cleaning of the family home and manicuring the front garden.

  But a lifetime as the eldest of the Doyles had taught Anna that a hotel would not be right. There were all those dismissive remarks about hotels in the past, destructive and critical remarks about this family who couldn’t be bothered to have the thing in their own home, or the other family who would be quite glad to invite you to a common hotel, an impersonal place, but wouldn’t let you over their own doorstep, thank you very much.

  It would have to be home, the invitation would have to say in silver lettering that the guest was being invited to Salthill, 26 Rosemary Drive, Pinner. Salthill had been a seaside resort over in the West of Ireland where Mother and Maureen Barry used to go when they were young, it had been lovely, they said. Father had never been there, he said there was little time for long family holidays when he was a boy making his way in Ireland.

  Wearily Anna made the list; it would be this size if there wasn’t an Irish contingent, and that size if there were. It could be this size if there was to be a sit-down meal, that size if it were a buffet. This size if it were just drinks and snacks, that size if it were a proper meal.

  And who would pay for it?

  Very often the children did, she knew that.

  But Helen had taken a vow of poverty and had nothing. Brendan, even if he did come which wasn’t likely, was working for an agricultural worker’s wages. Anna had very little money to spend on such a party.

  She had very little money indeed. By dint of hard saving, no lunches and a few wise buys at Oxfam she had saved £132. It was in the building society hoping to become £200 and then when Joe had £200 they were going to Greece together. Joe had £11 at the moment so he had a longer way to go as regards saving. But he was sure to get a part soon. His agent had said there were a lot of things coming up. He’d be working any day now.

  Anna hoped that he would, she really and truly did.

  If he got something good, something where they recognized him properly, something steady, then everything else could fall into place. Not just the Greek holiday but everything. He could arrange a settlement for his sons, give Janet something that would make her feel independent, he could begin the divorce proceedings. Then Anna could risk leaving Books for People and go to a bigger shop, she would easily get promotion in a large bookshop, a graduate, experienced in the trade already. They would love her.

  The time had gone by in thought, and soon the keys were turning in the door and the others arriving. Soon the door was open to the public. Planning was over, yet again.

  At lunch time Anna made up her mind, she would go out to Pinner that evening and ask her parents straight out how they would like to celebrate the day. It seemed less celebratory than telling them that it was all in hand. But to try and do that was nonsense really, and she could still get it wrong. She would ask them straight out.

  She rang them to say she would be coming over. Her mother was pleased.

  ‘That’s good, Anna, we haven’t seen you for ages and ages, I was just saying to Daddy I hope Anna’s all right, and there’s nothing wrong.’

  Anna gritted her teeth.

  ‘Why would there be anything wrong?’

  ‘Well it’s just been so long, and we don’t know what you do.’

  ‘Mother, it’s been eight days. I was with you last weekend.’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t know how you are getting on …’

  ‘I ring you almost every day, you know how I’m getting on and what I do, get up in Shepherd’s Bush and get the tube in here, and then I go home again. That is what I do, Mother, like a great many million people in London do.’ Her voice rose in rage at her mother’s attitude.

  The reply was surprisingly mild. ‘Why are you shouting at me, Anna my dear child? I only said I was delighted you were coming over this evening, your father will be o
verjoyed. Will we have a little steak and mushrooms? That’s what we’ll have as a celebration to welcome you back. Yes, I’ll run down to the butcher’s this afternoon, and get it … That’s simply great you’re going to come back. I can’t wait to tell your father, I’ll give him a ring at work now and tell him.’

  ‘Don’t … Mother, just … well I mean …’

  ‘Of course I’ll tell him, give him pleasure, something to look forward to.’

  When she hung up, Anna stood motionless, hand on the receiver, and thought about the one time she had brought Joe to lunch at Salthill, 26 Rosemary Drive. She had invited him as ‘a friend’ and had spent the entire journey making him promise not to reveal that he was (a) living with her, and (b) married to someone else.

  ‘Which is the more dangerous one to let slip?’ Joe had asked, grinning.

  ‘They’re both equally dangerous,’ she had said with such seriousness that he had leaned over and kissed her on the nose in the train in front of everyone.

  It had been all right as a visit, Anna had thought, Mother and Father had inquired politely about Joe’s acting career and whether he knew famous actors and actresses.

  In the kitchen Mother had asked was he by way of being a boyfriend?

  Just a friend, Anna had insisted.

  On the way home she asked Joe what he had made of them.

  ‘Very nice but very tense people,’ he had said.

  Tense? Mother and Father. She had never thought of them as tense. But in a way it was true.

  And Joe didn’t know what they were like when there was no outsider there, Mother wondering why Helen hadn’t been there on two occasions during the week when they had telephoned her convent. Father striding around the garden snapping the heads off flowers and saying that boy was so restless and idle that he could only end up with the job of village idiot sucking straws on a small farm, it was hard to know why he had to go back to the one village in Ireland where they were known, and live with the one man in Ireland who could be guaranteed to give the worst impression of the Doyles and all their activities, his own brother, Brendan’s Uncle Vincent. Just to inherit that miserable farm.

  Joe had seen none of this side of things and yet he still thought her parents tense.

  She had pursued it. Why? How did it show itself?

  But Joe didn’t want to be drawn.

  ‘It’s like this,’ he had said to her, smiling to take any hurt out of his words. ‘Some people just live that kind of life where this can be said and that can’t be said, and people think what can be told and what can’t. It’s a way of going on where everything is a pretence, an act … Now that doesn’t bother me if people want to live like that. It’s not my way, but people make up a lot of rules and live by them …’

  ‘We’re not like that!’ She was stung.

  ‘I’m not criticizing you, my love. I’m just telling you what I see … I see Hare Krishnas shaving their heads and dancing and waving bells. I see you and your family acting things out just like they do. I don’t let the Hare Krishnas get up my nose, I won’t let your old man and old lady either. Right?’ He had grinned at her winningly.

  She had grinned back with a hollow empty feeling inside her and resolved not to go on about home any more.

  The day came to an end. One of the nicer publishing reps was there as the shop closed. He asked her to come and have a drink.

  ‘I’m going to darkest Pinner,’ Anna said. ‘I’d better set out now.’

  ‘I’m driving that way, why don’t we have a drink en route?’ he said.

  ‘Nobody’s driving to Pinner,’ she laughed.

  ‘Oh, how do you know I don’t have a mistress out that way, or am hoping to acquire one?’ he teased.

  ‘We wouldn’t discuss such things in Rosemary Drive,’ Anna said, mock primly.

  ‘Come on, get in, the car’s on a double yellow line,’ he laughed.

  He was Ken Green, she had talked to him a lot at the bookshop. They had both started work the same day, it had been a common bond.

  He was going to leave his company and join a bigger one, so was she; neither of them had done it.

  ‘Do you think we’re just cowards?’ she asked him as he negotiated the rush-hour traffic.

  ‘No, there are always reasons. What’s holding you back, these moral folk in Rosemary Drive?’

  ‘How do you know they’re moral folk?’ she said, surprised.

  ‘You just told me there’d be no talk of mistresses in your house,’ Ken said.

  ‘Too true, they’d be very disappointed to know that I was one myself,’ Anna said.

  ‘So would I.’ Ken seemed serious.

  ‘Oh, come on out of that,’ she laughed at him. ‘It’s always easy to pay compliments to someone you know is tied up, much safer. If I told you I was free and on the rampage you’d run a hundred miles from me instead of offering me a drink.’

  ‘Absolutely wrong. I left your bookshop to the last specially, I was thinking all day how nice it would be to see you. Don’t you accuse me of being faint-hearted, hey?’

  She patted his knee companionably. ‘No. I misjudged you.’ She sighed deeply. It was easy to talk to Ken, she didn’t have to watch what she said. Like she would when she got to Salthill in Rosemary Drive. Like she would when she got back to Joe later on.

  ‘Was that a sigh of pleasure?’ he asked.

  With Joe or with Mother or Father she would have said yes.

  ‘Weariness: I get tired of all the lies,’ she said. ‘Very tired.’

  ‘But you’re a big girl now, surely you don’t have to tell lies about your life and the way you live it.’

  Anna nodded her head glumly. ‘I do, truly I do.’

  ‘Maybe you only think you do.’

  ‘No, I do. Like the telephone. I’ve told them at home that my phone has been taken out, so that they won’t ring me. That’s because there’s a message on the answerphone saying “This is Joe Ashe’s number”. He has to have it, you see, because he’s an actor and they can’t be out of touch.’

  ‘Of course,’ Ken said.

  ‘So naturally I don’t want my mother ringing and hearing a man’s voice. And I don’t want my father asking what’s this young man doing in my flat.’

  ‘True, he might well ask that, and why he hadn’t a machine of his own and number of his own,’ Ken said sternly.

  ‘So I have to be careful about not mentioning things like paying the phone bill, I have to remember I’m not meant to be on the phone. That’s just one of the nine million lies.’

  ‘Well, is it all right at the other end, of the line, I mean you don’t have to lie to this actor chap?’ Ken seemed anxious to know.

  ‘Lie? No, not at all, what would I have to lie about?’

  ‘I don’t know, you said all the lies you had to tell everywhere. I thought maybe he was a jealous macho fellow, you couldn’t tell him you went for a drink with me. That’s if we ever get anywhere near a drink.’ Ken looked ruefully at the tailbacks.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t understand, Joe would be glad to think I went for a drink with a friend. It’s just …’ Her voice trailed away. What was it just? It was just that there was an endless utterly endless need to pretend. Pretend she was having a good time in the odd club place where they went. Pretend she understood this casual relationship with his mother, his wife, his children. Pretend she liked these fringe theatres where he played small parts. Pretend she enjoyed lovemaking every time. Pretend she didn’t care about this heavy family business ahead of her.

  ‘I don’t lie to Joe,’ she said as if she were speaking to herself. ‘I just act a bit.’

  There was a silence in the car.

  ‘Well, he is an actor, I suppose,’ Ken said, trying to revive the conversation a little.

  That wasn’t it. The actor didn’t act at all, he never pretended to please anyone else. It was the actor’s girlfriend who did all the acting. How odd that she had never thought of it that way before.

  They sa
t and talked easily when they eventually found a pub.

  ‘Do you want to ring your people to say you’ve been delayed?’ Ken suggested.

  She looked at him, surprised that he should be so thoughtful.

  ‘Well, if they’ve bought steak and everything …’ he said.

  Mother was touched. ‘That was nice of you dear, Father was beginning to look out for you. He said he’d walk down to the station.’

  ‘No, I’m getting a lift.’

  ‘Is it that Joe? Joe Ashe the actor?’

  ‘No, no, Mother, Ken Green, a friend from work.’

  ‘I don’t think I got enough steak …’

  ‘He’s not coming to supper, he’s just driving me there.’

  ‘Well, ask him in, won’t you? We love to meet your friends. Your father and I often wish you brought friends back here more often. That all of you did over the years.’ Her voice sounded wistful, as if she were looking at her wall of pictures and not getting a proper charge from them.

  ‘I’ll ask him in for a moment then,’ Anna said.

  ‘Could you bear it?’ she asked Ken.

  ‘I’d like it. I can be a beard.’

  ‘What on earth is that?’

  ‘Don’t you read your gossip magazines? It’s someone who distracts attention from your real love. If they get to meet upright fellows like me they won’t get the wind of evil sensual actor lovers who have their answering machines tied to your phone.’

  ‘Oh shut up,’ she laughed. It was easy laughter, not forced.

  They had another drink. She told Ken Green about the anniversary. She told him briefly that her sister was a nun, her brother had dropped out and gone to work on the farm of her father’s eldest brother Vincent, a small rundown place on Ireland’s west coast. Feeling a little lighter and easier already, she told him that this was why she was having supper with her parents. For the first time in a long while she was going to come right out in the open, ask them what they wanted, tell them the limitations. Explain the problems.