by Maeve Binchy
Gertie's sister Sheila came home for Christmas.
'I must have her to a lunch here,' said Ria.
'Oh God no,' Danny said. 'Not over Christmas. Not that fellow with his fists here over Christmas, please.'
'Don't give a dog a bad name, Danny. Wasn't he great now at the party?'
'Well, if standing like a block of wood was great then he was.'
'Don't be an old grouch, it's not like you.'
Danny sighed. 'Sweetheart, you're always filling the house with people. We get no peace.'
'I am not.' She was hurt.
'But you are, this is one of the few times there's just us and Annie here. There are people coming and going all the time.'
'That's the meanest thing I ever heard. Who's here more often than Barney? He's here about four times a week, and with Polly one day or Mona another. Now I don't ask them, do I?'
'No.'
'So?'
'So it's not very restful, that's all.'
'Forget Gertie's sister then,' Ria said. 'It was just an idea.'
'Look… I don't mean…'
'No, I said forget it, we'll be restful.'
'Ria, come here…' He dragged her towards him. 'You are the world's worse sulker,' he said and kissed her on the nose. 'All right, what day will we have them?'
'I knew you'd be reasonable. What about the Sunday after Christmas Day?'
'No, that's the McCarthys. We can't miss that.'
'Right, the Monday then, no one will have gone back to work. It will be stay-at-home Ireland . Will we ask your mother and father?'
'What for?' Danny asked.
'They can see Annie, see all that we've done to the place, meet these Americans, you know.'
'They'd be no good, and honestly I don't think they'd enjoy it,' Danny said.
Ria paused. 'Sure,' she said. And, after all, she had won over Gertie's sister.
Sheila Maine and her husband Max had not been in Ireland for six years. Not since their wedding day. They now had a son Sean, the same age as Annie. Sheila seemed astounded at how well Ireland was doing, how prosperous the people were, and how successful were the small businesses she saw everywhere. When she had left to go to America to seek her fortune at the age of eighteen, Ireland had been a much poorer country. 'Look what has happened in less than ten years!'
Ria felt that, not unlike her own sister Hilary who seemed to rejoice in bad news rather than good, Sheila Maine was not entirely pleased to see the upturn in the economy. What Sheila really seemed to resent was the great social life that people had in Dublin . 'It's not at all like this in the States,' she confided on the evening before Christmas Eve when there was a girls' dinner out in Colm's new restaurant. 'I can't imagine all these people laughing and talking to each other at different tables. It's all changed a great deal from my time.'
Colm had been having a series of rehearsals, inexpensive meals where friends would try out the recipes and the ambience at a very reduced cost. This way they could iron out some of the wrinkles before the restaurant opened officially in March. Only those who were within his group were allowed in. Colm's beautiful and silent sister Caroline worked with him, serving and acting as hostess. 'Smile a little more, Caroline,' they heard him urging her from time to time. She was a nervous girl, she might never be seen as fronting a successful restaurant for her brother.
Sheila was thrilled with it all. And on Christmas Eve they were going in to Grafton Street where a live radio broadcast was done on The Gay Byrne Show. Perhaps she might even be called upon to speak as a returned emigrant. Anything was possible in the Ireland of today. Look at all Gertie's smart friends, with their good jobs or their beautiful houses. Gertie herself was not particularly well off; her launderette was at the less smart end of Tara Road. And her husband Jack, though charming and handsome, seemed vague about his prospects. But they had a business, and a two-year-old baby boy. And everyone was so confident. Sheila Maine's sigh was so like Hilary Moran's sigh that Ria could hardly wait for the two women to meet at lunch in her house.
And indeed they did get on very well. Gertie and Ria stood back and watched them bonding together. The quiet husband, Max Maine, who came from a Ukrainian background and knew little or nothing about Ireland , seemed ill at ease. Only Danny of course was able to draw him out with his warm smile and his interest in everything new. 'Tell me about the kind of houses you have out there, Max. Are they all that whiteboard we see pictures of?'
Max was frank and explained that in the part of Connecticut where he and Sheila lived, there weren't many dream houses standing in their own grounds. Danny was equally frank and expanded on how they had managed to get a big house like this one in Tara Road by being in the right place at the right time, and by having three of their rooms occupied by youngsters who helped to pay the rent. Visibly Max relaxed with half a bottle of Russian vodka which they sipped from small glasses. Ria watched as Danny captivated her friend's brother-in-law. He hadn't wanted them to come and yet he was now giving his all. Jack, having been frightened into some kind of truce, sat drinkless and wordless in a corner.
Afterwards, as they washed up, Ria gave Danny a hug. 'You are marvellous, and weren't you rewarded in the end? He is a nice man, Max, isn't he?'
'Sweetheart, he hasn't a word to throw to a dog. But you're so good to people when they come here for me, I thought I'd be nice to him for you, and for poor Gertie, who isn't a bad old stick. That's all.'
Somehow Ria felt cheated. She had really believed that Danny was enjoying his conversation with Max Maine. It was upsetting to realise that it had all been an act.
Sheila wanted to know was there a good fortune-teller around before she went back home. A lot of her neighbours in America went to psychics, some of them very powerful, but they wouldn't know you like an Irish woman would. 'I'll take all you three girls … my treat,' she said. You couldn't not like Sheila. Bigger and much more untidy than Gertie, she had the same anxious eyes and the edges of her mouth turned down in sadness to leave this place where everyone was having such a good time.
Ria longed to tell her that they were all putting on a show for her, but that would have been to let Gertie down.
'Come on, let's all go to Mrs Connor,' Gertie suggested.
'She didn't get things right for me years back, but I hear she's red-hot at the moment. Why not, it's an adventure, isn't it?' Rosemary agreed. The last time they had been there, Rosemary had said nothing about what had been predicted, just that it was not relevant to her life plans. Maybe it would be different now.
'Well, she did tell me my baby would be a girl. I know it was a fifty-fifty chance but she was right. Let's go to her,' Ria said. She had stopped taking the pill back in September. But as yet the time had not been ripe to tell Danny. She was waiting for the proper moment.
Mrs Connor must have had five or ten people a night coming to her since they were there last. Hundreds of eager faces watching her, thousands of hopeful hands held out, and many more thousands of paper banknotes crossing the table. There was no evidence whatsoever of any increased affluence in her caravan. Her face showed no sign of any contentment in having seen the futures of so many people.
She told Sheila, having heard her accent, that she lived across the sea possibly in the United States , that she was married reasonably happily, but that she would like to live back in Ireland .
'And will I live back in Ireland ?' Sheila asked beseechingly.
'Your future is in your own hands,' Mrs Connor said gravely, and somehow this cheered Sheila a lot. She considered the money well spent.
To Gertie, with her anxious eyes, Mrs Connor said that there was an element of sadness and danger in her life and she should be watchful for those she loved. Since Gertie was never anything but watchful for Jack this seemed a good summing-up of affairs.
Rosemary sat and held out her hand, marvelling as she looked around her at the squalor of the surroundings. This woman must take in, tax-free, something like a hundred thousand pounds a ye
ar. How could she bear to live like this? 'You were here before,' the woman said to her.
'That's right, some years back.'
'And did what I saw happen for you?'
'No, you saw me in deep trouble, with no friends, no success. It couldn't have been more wrong. I'm in no trouble, I have lots of friends and my business is thriving. But you can't win them all and you got the others right.' Rosemary smiled at her, one professional woman to another.
Mrs Connor raised her eyes from the palm. 'I didn't see that, I saw you had no real friends, and that there was something you wanted which you couldn't get. That's what I still see.' Her voice was certain and sad.
Rosemary was a little shaken. 'Well, do you see me getting married?' she asked, forcing a lightness into her voice.
'No,' Mrs Connor said.
Ria was the last to go in. She looked at the fortune-teller with sympathy. 'Aren't you very damp here? That old heater isn't great for you.'
'I'm fine,' Mrs Connor said.
'Couldn't you live somewhere better, Mrs Connor? Can't you see that in your hand?' Ria was concerned.
'We don't read our own hands. It's a tradition.'
'Well, somebody else might…'
'Can you show me your palm, please, lady. We're here for you to know are you pregnant again?'
Ria's jaw fell open in amazement. 'And am I?' she said in a whisper.
'Yes, you are, lady. A little boy this time.' Ria felt a stinging behind her eyes. No more than her mother's famous Saint Ann , dead and gone for two thousand years, Mrs Connor barely alive in her caravan couldn't know the future, but she was mightily convincing. She had been right about Annie, remember, and right about Hilary having no children at all. Possibly there were ways outside the normal channels of knowing these things. She stood up as if to go. 'Don't you want to hear about your business and the travel overseas?'
'No, that's not on. That's somebody else's life creeping in on my palm,' Ria said kindly.
Mrs Connor shrugged. 'I see it, you know. A successful business, where you are very good at it and happy too.'
Ria laughed. 'Well, my husband will be pleased, I'll tell him. He's working very hard these days, he'll be glad I'm going to be a tycoon.'
'And tell him about the baby that's coming, lady. He doesn't know that yet,' said Mrs Connor, coughing and drawing her cardigan around her for warmth.
Danny was not really pleased when he heard the news. 'This was something we said we would discuss together, sweetheart.'
'I know, but there never is time to discuss anything, Danny, you work so hard.'
'Well, isn't that all the more reason we should discuss things? Barney's so stretched these days, money is tight, and some of the projects have huge risk attached to them. We might not be able to afford another baby.'
'Be reasonable. How much is a baby going to cost? We have all the baby things for him. We don't have to get a cot, a pram or any of the things that cost money.' She was stung with disappointment.
'Ria, it's not that I don't want another child—you know that -it's just that we did agree to discuss it, and this isn't the best time. In three or four years we could afford it better.'
'We won't have to pay anything for him, I tell you, until he is three or four.'
'Stop calling it him, Ria. We can't know at this stage.'
'I know already.'
'Because of some fortune-teller! Sweetheart, will you give me a break?'
'She was right about my being pregnant. I went to the doctor next day.'
'So much for joint decisions.'
'Danny, that's not fair. That's the most unfair thing I ever heard. Do I ask to be part of all the decisions you make for this house? I do bloody not. I don't know when you're going to be in or out, when Barney McCarthy will come and closet himself with you for hours. I don't know if we are to see his wife or his mistress with him each time he turns up. I don't ask to discuss if I can go out to work again, and let Mam look after Annie for us, because you like the house comfortable for you whatever time you come home. I'd like a cat but you're not crazy about them, so that's that. I'd like us to have more time on our own, the two of us, but you need to have Barney around, so that's that. And I forgot to take the pill for a bit and suddenly it's a matter of joint decisions. Where are the other joint decisions, I ask you? Where are they?' The tears were running down her face. The delight in the new life that was starting inside her seemed almost wiped out.
Danny looked at her in amazement. His own face crumpled as he realised the extent of her loneliness and how much she had felt excluded. 'I can't tell you how sorry I am. I truly can't tell you how cheap and selfish I feel listening to you. Everything you say is true. I have been ludicrous about work. I worry so much in case we'll lose what we've got. I'm so sorry, Ria.' He buried his face in her and she stroked his head with sounds of reassurance. 'And I'm delighted we're having a little boy. And suppose the little boy's a little girl like Annie, I'll be delighted with that too.'
Ria thought about telling him what the fortune-teller had said about her having a business of her own one day, and overseas travel. But she decided it would break the mood. And it was nonsense anyway.
'I know you're pregnant again, Ria. Mam told me,' Hilary said when she came to call.
'I was about to tell you. I forgot what a bush telegraph Mam is. It's probably being broadcast on the midday news by now,' Ria said apologetically.
'Are you pleased?' Hilary asked.
'Very. And it will be good for Annie to have someone to play with, though she'll probably hate him at first.'
'Him?'
'Yes, I'm pretty sure. Listen, Hilary, it's hard for me to talk about this with you. You never want to talk about, well, about your own situation, and there was a time when we could talk about anything, you and I.'
'I don't mind talking about it.' Hilary was offhand.
'Well, have you thought of adopting a baby?'
'I have,' Hilary said. 'But Martin hasn't.'
'Why ever not?'
'It might be too expensive. He thinks that the cost of educating and clothing a child is prohibitive these days. And suppose it went to third-level education, well, you're talking thousands and thousands over a lifetime.'
'But if you'd had your own you'd have paid that.'
'With difficulty you know, and the other way there'd be the feeling we're doing it for someone else's child.'
'Oh there wouldn't. Of course there wouldn't. Once you get the baby it's yours.'
'So they say, but I don't know.' Hilary nodded doubtfully over her mug of tea.
'And is it easy to adopt?' Ria persisted.
'Not nowadays, they're all keeping their kids, you see, and getting an allowance from the State. I'd put an end to that, I tell you.'
'And have them terrified out of their lives, like when we were young.'
'It didn't terrify you,' Hilary said as she so often did.
'Well, I mean the generation before us then. Remember all the stories, girls committing suicide or running off to England and everything, never knowing what happened. Surely it's much better the way it is?'
'Easy for you to say, Ria. If you saw that little rossie up at the school, with her stomach stuck out in front of her, and now it appears that her mother doesn't want to bring it up, so there's more drama.'
'Maybe you and Martin…'
'Live in the real world, Ria. Could you imagine us working in that school, bringing up that little tinker's baby, paying through the nose for everything for it? Right pair of laughing-stocks we'd be.'
Ria thought that Hilary found the world too harsh and unloving a place but then she was in a poor position to try and console her sister. Ria had so much and in many ways Hilary really did have so little.
Orla King was back at her AA meetings again. Colm was as friendly to her as ever. But she felt awkward, particularly with imperfect recollection of the party in Tara Road. Finally she brought the subject up.
'I meant to thank yo
u for trying to help me that night, Colm.' It wasn't easy to find the words.
'It's okay, Orla. We all go through it, that's why we're here. That was then, this is now.'
'Now is a bit bleak though.'
'Only if you allow it to be. Try something different. I've felt so tired since I left the bank, trying to set up this restaurant business, that I haven't had time to miss the drink and fell sorry for myself.'
'What can I do except type?'
'You said once you'd like to be a model.'
'I'm too old and too fat, you have to be sixteen and look half-starved.'
'You don't sing badly. Can you play the piano?'
'Yes, but I only sing when I'm drunk.'
'Have you tried it sober? It might be more tuneful and you'd remember the words.'
'Sorry to be so helpless, Colm. I'm like a tiresome child, I know. But suppose I could get a few songs together, then where would I try for a job?'
'I could give you the odd spot when my place opens… not real money, but you might get discovered. And of course Rosemary knows half of Dublin . She might know people in restaurants, hotels, clubs.'
'I don't think Rosemary's too keen on me these days. I did fool around with her best friend's husband.'
Colm grinned. 'Well, at least that's all you're describing it as now, fooling around, not the great love affair of the century.'
'He's a shit,' Orla said.
'He's all right really, he just couldn't resist you. Very few of us could.' He grinned at her and she thought again what an attractive man he was. Since he had left the bank he wore much more casual clothes, open-necked shirts in bright colours; his black curly hair and big dark eyes made him look slightly foreign, Spanish or Italian. And he was a rock of sense too. Handsome, single, sensible.
Orla sighed. 'You make me feel much better, Colm. Why couldn't I fall in love with someone normal like you?'
'Oh I'm not normal at all, we all know that,' Colm joked.
A look of unease crossed Orla's pretty round face. She hoped that when she had been drunk she had said nothing about the over-protectiveness Colm always had about his silent beautiful sister. No, surely bad and all as she had been that night she'd never have hinted at anything as dark as that.
