by Maeve Binchy
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Maeve Binchy
Title Page
Dedication
Part One: 1940–1945
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Part Two: 1945–1954
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Part Three: 1954–1956
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Part Four: 1956–1960
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Copyright
About the Book
Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, shy and genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the boisterous O’Connors in Kilgarret, Ireland. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth and Aisling O’Connor, a friendship which will endure through twenty turbulent years of change and chaos, joy and sorrow, soaring dreams and searing betrayals …
Writing with warmth, wit and great compassion, Maeve Binchy tells a magnificent story of the lives and loves of two women, bound together in a friendship that nothing can tear asunder – not even the man who threatens to come between them for ever.
About the Author
Maeve Binchy was born in Dublin, and went to school at the Holy Child Convent in Killiney. She took a history degree at UCD and taught in various girls’ schools, writing travel articles in the long summer holidays. In 1969 she joined the Irish Times and for many years she was based in London writing humorous columns from all over the world. She is the author of five collections of short stories as well as twelve novels including Circle of Friends, The Copper Beech, Tara Road, Evening Class and The Glass Lake. Maeve Binchy died in July 2012 and is survived by her husband, the writer Gordon Snell.
Also by Maeve Binchy
Fiction
Echoes
Victoria Line, Central Line
Dublin 4
The Lilac Bus
Firefly Summer
Silver Wedding
Circle of Friends
The Copper Beech
The Glass Lake
Evening Class
Tara Road
Scarlet Feather
Quentins
Nights of Rain and Stars
Non-fiction
Aches & Pains
For dearest Gordon with all my love
PART ONE
1940–1945
I
VIOLET FINISHED THE library book and closed it with a snap. Yet again, a self-doubting, fluttery, bird-brain heroine had been swept away by a masterful man. He would silence her protests with kisses, the urgency of his passion would express itself in all sorts of positive ways. … He would organise the elopement or the wedding plans or the emigration to his South American estates. The heroine would never have to make all the arrangements herself, standing in queues at the travel agency, the ticket office, the passport office. Violet had to do everything herself. She had come back from an endless morning of standing in shops to beat the shortages. Other women seemed to enjoy it, to think of it as a game of hunt-the-thimble. ‘I’ll tell you where there’s bread if you tell me how you got those carrots.’
Violet had been to the school and had a highly unsatisfactory discussion with Miss James. Miss James was not going to organise any evacuation for her class. All the parents so far had friends or relations in the country. There was no question of the whole class decamping and continuing their education in some rural setting with safety from bombs and plenty of good country food. Miss James had said quite tartly that she was certain Mr and Mrs White must have friends outside London. Violet wondered suddenly whether they had friends anywhere, city or country. She felt very dissatisfied with Miss James for forcing her to face this possibility. George did have some cousins in Somerset, near Wells. But they had lost touch. Oh yes, she’d read all the heart-warming stories of long-lost families having been brought together over the evacuation of children … but somehow she didn’t think it would happen to George. Violet had no relations to speak of. Her father and his second wife were in Liverpool, separated from her by a feud too long-lasting to dream of mending. To heal would be to open the wound, examine it and forgive. It was so long ago it was almost forgotten. Let it stay that way.
Elizabeth was so timid, so unsure of herself, she would not be an easy evacuee. She had inherited her father’s awkwardness, Violet thought regretfully. She seemed to expect the worst from every situation. Well, perhaps it was better than having expected great things and having got so little. Violet suspected that Elizabeth and George might be the lucky ones; to expect defeat and conflict and being relegated to second best meant freedom from shock when it happened.
It was no use whatsoever discussing it with George. These days George had only one thing he could discuss – the kind of country which would accept a man for military service who hadn’t a brain in his head, and refuse a man like George who could have been of some real assistance in the war. … It had been bad enough to see all those younger, brainless men do well in the bank, move into different aspects, get preferment, buy motor cars, even – that had been galling. But now, when their land was threatened and their nation was in danger, George had been told that some services were essential to the country and that banking was one of them.
They had found no terminal disease at his medical examination, just a series of inadequacies. He had flat feet, he had a whistling chest, he had sinus trouble, he had varicose veins, he was slightly deaf in one ear. His offer to lay down his life for his country had been met with a series of insults.
From time to time, Violet felt an old, familiar surge of affection for him, a sharing in his outrage, but mainly she felt he brought a lot of it on himself. Not his deafness, not his veins, but his rejection and his disappointment. He went out half-way to invite it.
So the problem of what they were to do with Elizabeth would, of course, be Violet’s and Violet’s alone. As were so many of the problems.
Violet stood up and examined her face in the mirror. It was a perfectly acceptable face. It had nice colouring, according to what the magazines advised; and her hair was blonde, naturally blonde. Her figure had always been good. Even before the drawing in of belts that had become associated with patriotism and this dreadful war, Violet used to watch what she ate. Why, then, did her face have no sparkle? It wasn’t a lively face. It looked flat somehow.
Of course it looked flat, Violet thought with a surge of resentment. Anyone’s face would look flat had they been dealt such a poor hand in everything. The chap that had said her eyes were violet like her name had turned out to be a confidence trickster, and had swindled everyone in the neighbourhood. The fellow who had said she should sing professionally had only meant her to sing to him in the bath while he poured her sparkling wine. The eager young banker who told her that together they would rise in London society so that everyone would know her name and envy her distinguished husband his luck, was at this moment with his flat feet and varicose veins, picking his teeth and making excuses down at the local branch of the bank where he would stay forever.
It had all been so different, so dull. It had all been so unfair and so flat. No wonder her features had blended into the background.
She looked at the cover of the library book. Under the transparent library binding a masterful man leaned on an old gnarled apple tree with his riding crop in his hand. Violet
wondered whether people should be prosecuted for writing novels like that.
Elizabeth came home from school slowly. Miss James had said that Mother had been in to discuss things. She had said not to look so anxious, there was nothing to worry about. Elizabeth had looked doubtful. No, really, Miss James had assured her, Elizabeth’s Mummy had only come in to discuss what would happen when the children all went off to the country to stay in quiet places by the seaside or on farms. Elizabeth wasn’t fooled by Miss James’s way of describing what lay ahead. She knew it was something dreadful, something spoken of with dread by parents … as if it were torture. They tried to make light of it, but it was no use.
Elizabeth had thought it was ‘vaccination’ when she had heard of it first. It was another long word with dangerous associations. Father had laughed and put his arms around her, and Mother had smiled too. No, they assured her, evacuation was being sent to the country in case bombs fell and hurt children. But why couldn’t parents come to the country too, Elizabeth had wanted to know. Father had said he had to work in the bank, and Mother had sniffed; and suddenly the nice smiling bit, the short happy bit when she had mixed up the words was gone. Father said Mother could go to the country, as she had no job. Mother had replied that if she had a job she wouldn’t have remained on the bottom rung of it for fifteen years.
Elizabeth had run off pretending that she had to do her homework, but she just took out an old doll and unpicked it, stitch by stitch, while she cried and wondered what she could do to make them smile more, and what she had done that made them so angry all the time.
Today she had another fear in her heart. She wondered if Mother had fought with Miss James about something. Mother had thought Miss James was silly before, when she had taught them to sing nursery rhymes in harmony. ‘Big girls, ten years old, singing silly nursery rhymes,’ Mother had said, and Miss James had answered her pleasantly. But a lot of the fun went out of it after that. …
Elizabeth found it hard to know when Mother would be happy. Sometimes she was happy for days on end, like the time they had gone to the music hall, and Mother had met an old friend and he had said that Mother used to sing better than anyone on the stage in London. Father had been a bit put out, but what with Mother being so cheerful, and even suggesting they all have a fish supper, he cheered up. Mother didn’t usually suggest anything so common as a fish supper. When they had fish at home, it was little bits of fish, with lots of bones and funny knives that weren’t really knives to eat it with. Mother loved those knives. They had been a wedding present and she warned everyone not to let their handles go into the water when the washing-up was being done. Elizabeth didn’t like the fish that Mother cooked, with the bones and little bits of egg and parsley on it, but she was glad to see it because the knives always made Mother so good-humoured.
And sometimes when she came home from school, Mother would be singing: that was always a very good omen indeed. Other times, Mother would come and sit on Elizabeth’s bed and stroke her fine, fair hair and tell her about her childhood and how she had read books about men who did brave deeds for beautiful women. Sometimes she told Elizabeth funny stories about the nuns in the extraordinary convent school where everyone had been Roman Catholics and believed the most amazing things, but Mother had been allowed to go for walks during the religious instruction classes because it had all been quite so amazing.
The terrible thing was that you never knew when Mother would be happy or when she would not.
Today she was writing a letter, which was unusual. Elizabeth thought that it was a complaint letter, and she prayed that it wasn’t about Miss James. She approached nervously.
‘Are you busy, Mother?’ she asked.
‘Mm,’ said Mother.
She stood there, a thin little ten-year-old; her short, fair hair – almost white it was so fair – was pulled back from her face with an Alice band, but when she was fussed – like now – little wisps of it escaped, standing up like spikes. Her face was red and white at the same time; the parts around her eyes and nose ashen, while the crimson high up on her cheeks moved like a red shadow.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘I’m going to send you to Eileen.’
Eileen was a name on a Christmas card, it was a name associated with a small, cheap toy on her birthday. Last year, Mother had said she wished Eileen would drop the birthday gifts, it was silly to keep it up and she couldn’t possibly be expected to remember all the birthdays of Eileen’s dozens of children.
‘It seems the only possible solution.’
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. She wished she knew what she could do to be allowed to stay. She wished hard that she could be the kind of girl that parents didn’t send away, or that they’d come with her.
‘Will you come with me?’ She looked at the carpet hard.
‘Oh, heavens, no dear.’
‘I was just hoping. …’
‘Elizabeth, don’t be so silly. I can’t possibly go to Eileen’s, to the O’Connors, with you. … Darling, they live in Ireland. Who would go to Ireland, Elizabeth, for heaven’s sake? It’s out of the question.’
Thursday was always a busy day because the farmers coming in for the market brought their lists into the shop. Sean employed a boy, Jemmy, who wasn’t ‘all there’, to help carry out the supplies from the yard. He didn’t want the children cluttering up the shop on a Thursday, he had said so a dozen times. He wiped a weary forehead with a dusty hand in annoyance when he saw Aisling and Eamonn escaping from the ineffectual grabs and shouts of Peggy and running into the shop.
‘Where’s Mammy, Da, where’s Mammy?’ shouted Aisling.
‘Where’s Mammy, where’s Mammy?’ repeated Eamonn.
Peggy, running and giggling, was just as bad.
‘Will ya come here, you brats,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll tan the backside offa you, Aisling, when I catch you. Your father’s after saying a hundred times, he’ll have yez locked up if you come in here on a Thursday.’
The farmers, busy men who hated having to take any time at all away from their deals and discussions on beasts, laughed at the sideshow. Peggy, hair escaping from a bun, filthy apron stained with the last twenty meals she had served, was loving the sensation she knew she was causing. Sean looked at her helplessly as she darted here and there, making even more of a game of it than the children were, with her bold winks at the farmers and the come-on glance giving encouragement to any of them that might want to come back and find her at the end of the market when the pubs were making them feel like powerful men. Johnny stood open-mouthed and delighted, with the planks in his hands that should have been loaded on a trailer.
‘Get those bloody bits of wood outside and come back in here,’ roared Sean. ‘Now, Michael, ignore these antics, I’ll deal with that lot later. How much are you going to need for the plastering? Are you doing all the outhouses now? No, no, of course you’re not. Far too much to take on at one time.’
Eileen had heard the commotion, and in small quick steps she came out of her little office and down to the shop. Her office, with its mahogany surrounds and glass windows on all sides, looked like a little closed-in pulpit, Young Sean had said to her once. She should really preach a sermon to everyone in the shop, rather than fill in books and ledgers. But if Eileen didn’t fill books and ledgers, there would be no shop, no house, no luxuries like Peggy, and Jemmy, who got a few shillings on a Thursday which made him important again in his family.
Her face was set in a hard line when she met the excited children and the flushed Peggy. Taking each child in a most uncomfortable place, just under the shoulder, she marched them firmly out of the shop; and after one glance from the Mistress, Peggy lost a lot of her bounce and followed quickly with her eyes down. Sean sighed with relief and got back to what he knew about.
Up the stairs of the house in the square, the children squealing and wriggling, Eileen was unwavering.
‘Put on some tea, please, Peggy,’ she said, her voice cold.
‘But Mammy, we just wanted to show you the letter.’
‘With the picture of a man on it.’
‘It came by the afternoon post. …’
‘And Johnny said when he was giving it that it was from England. …’
‘And the man was the King of England. …’
Eileen ignored them. She put them sitting on two dining chairs opposite her and faced them.
‘If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, on Thursday, on market day, your father doesn’t want to see hide nor hair of you in that shop and neither do I. As it is, he’s over there waiting on me to come back and do the bills, and write up the books for the farmers. Have you no idea at all of obedience? Aisling, a great, big girl of ten years of age? Do you hear me?’
Aisling hadn’t heard a word. She wanted her mother to open the letter, which she vaguely thought was from the King of England because of what the postman had said.
‘Aisling, listen to me!’ shouted Eileen, and seeing that she was getting nowhere, she reached out and slapped the bare legs of the two of them. Hard. Both began to cry. At the sound, Niamh woke up and began to cry in the cot in the corner of the living room.
‘I only wanted to give you the letter,’ wailed Aisling. ‘I hate you, I hate you.’
‘I hate you too,’ echoed Eamonn.
Eileen marched to the door. ‘Well, you can sit here and hate me.’ She tried not to raise her voice since she knew that little Donal would be sitting up in bed, listening to every sound. Just thinking of his little face made her heart move suddenly, so she decided to run upstairs and see him just for a few seconds. If she went in and said something cheerful he would smile and go back to his book. Otherwise she might see his face pressed anxiously to the bedroom window as he watched her crossing from the house to the shop. She peeped in at his door, knowing well that he was awake.
‘You’re to try and sleep, pet, you know that.’
‘Why is there shouting?’ he asked.
‘Because that bold sister and brother of yours came into the shop caterwauling on a Thursday, that’s why,’ she said, adjusting the bedclothes.
