Tara Road

by Maeve Binchy

  'You're absolutely right, Barney, I don't know what got into me,' she said. 'Will I make a little snack for you and Danny? Iced tea maybe and a tomato sandwich on wholemeal bread?'

  'You're a genius,' he said.

  Ria's mother was in the kitchen with the children. 'Oh there you are, back from Lady Ryan's place.' Nora Johnson had never liked Rosemary.

  Ria had now forgotten where the resentment began and why. She had long ceased to try and convince her mother of Rosemary's worth. 'Yes indeed, and she was asking for you too, Mam.'

  'Huh,' snorted Nora Johnson. 'Was that Barney I heard you talking to?'

  Ria was bending over to see the picture that Annie had been painting, there was water all over the kitchen. 'I painted a picture of you, Mam,' she said proudly. A creature like a golliwog stood surrounded by saucepans and frying pans.

  'Lovely,' said Ria. 'That's really beautiful, Annie, you're so clever.'

  'I'm a clever boy,' Brian insisted.

  'No, you're a very stupid boy,' Annie said.

  'Annie, really! Brian's very clever too.'

  'I don't think he has a brain in his head,' Annie said seriously. 'If you don't give him any paints he screams and if you do he just makes big splashes.'

  'Rubbish, Annie. He's just not as old as you are, that's all. Wait until he's your age and he'll be able to do all the same things.'

  'When you get older will you be as clever as Gran?' Annie asked.

  'I hope so,' Ria smiled.

  'Never in a million years,' her mother said. 'I expect you'll be whipping up some little delicacy for that adulterer upstairs.'

  'It's a word I don't use really in general conversation myself,' Ria said, flashing her a look.

  Annie was learning new phrases all the time. 'What a dutterer?' she asked.

  'Oh, a dutterer is like a sort of drain, you know, another word for a gutter,' Ria said quickly.

  Annie accepted this and went back to her painting.

  'Sorry,' her mother said a little later.

  Ria patted her on the arm. 'It doesn't matter, I agree with you as it happens. Then I would, wouldn't I? Wives always do. Can you get me those big iced-tea glasses please, Mam?'

  'Mad idea this, you should either have a nice cold gin and tonic or a nice hot cup of tea, I say, not mixing the two up. It's not natural.'

  Later that evening Ria said to Danny that they should really try to do something with the wilderness of the garden.

  'Not now, sweetheart,' Danny said, as she knew he was going to.

  'I'm not going to nag, let me do it, I'll ask Barney for a price.'

  'You already did,' Danny said.

  'That's because I was trying to take things off your shoulders.'

  'Sweetheart, don't do that, please. He'd only do it for nothing, and it's not necessary.'

  'But Danny, you're the one who says we must keep up the value of the property.'

  'We don't know what we're going to do with it yet, Ria.'

  'Do with it? We want a place for people to park their cars when they come to see us, for us to park our car without it being like an obstacle race… we want it to look like a home where people are settling down for their life. Not some kind of a transit camp.'

  'But we haven't thought it through… what the future may bring.'

  'Now don't start talking like Barney about building here.' Ria was very cross.

  'Barney said that?'

  'Yes, and I don't know what the hell he was talking about.'

  Danny saw her red angry face and her confusion. 'Listen, if there is any building to be done, it's way way down the road yet. You're right. We must do something… a sort of patch-up job on it.'

  'But what do we need to build?'

  'Nothing yet, you're quite right.'

  'Yet? Haven't we got a huge house?'

  'Who knows what the future will bring?'

  'That's not fair, Danny. I must know what you think the future will bring.'

  'Okay then, I'll tell you what I mean. Suppose, just suppose we fell on hard times, we wouldn't want to lose this house. If we had a chance to build in the garden, maybe a small unit, two self-contained flats, little maisonettes they used to be called, or town houses, there would be room…'

  'Two flats in our garden? Outside our front door?' Ria looked at him as if he were mad.

  'If we left the possibility of doing so then it would be like an insurance policy.'

  'But it would be terrible.'

  'Better than losing the house if that were the choice. It's not, but suppose it were.'

  'Why should I suppose any such thing? You're always looking on the bright side, so why are we looking at doom and gloom and building horrible flats in our garden in case we're poor? If there's something you're not telling me then you'd better tell me now. It's not fair to leave me not bothering my pretty little head. It's not fair and I won't stand for it.'

  Danny took her in his arms. 'I swear I'm not hiding things from you. It's just in this business you see so many people who believed that the future was going to be fine and that everything would go on slightly upwards each year… and then something happens, some swing in the market, and they lose everything.'

  'But we don't have any stocks and shares, Danny.'

  'I know, sweetheart, we don't.'

  'What does that mean?'

  'Barney does, did, and our fortunes are very much tied up with his.'

  'But you said that the whole business of the guarantee was over, that once he had made his money on Number 32 he'd got out of that worry.'

  'And he has.' Danny was soothing. 'So he's more cautious now.'

  'Barney was never cautious in his life. He had a heart attack and he still smokes and drinks brandy, and anyway why does it mean that we should be cautious and edgy?'

  'Because our fortunes are tied in with his. Barney knows that and he wants the best for us, so that's why he likes to think there's a chance of our building… suppose things go badly for him… of us getting more bricks and mortar, the only thing that's definitely going to keep its value. Do you see?'

  'Not really, to be honest,' Ria said. 'If Barney's business collapsed couldn't you work in any estate agent in town?'

  'Yes, I suppose I could,' Danny said with that quick bright smile that Ria had learned to dread. It was the kind of smile he had when he was showing somebody a doubtful property. When he was anxious to close on something, when he had a completion date but not an exchange date, when he was afraid that the chain wouldn't hold and somebody somewhere along the line wouldn't get their loan and so it would all collapse like a house of cards.

  But there was no more to be discovered or discussed or gained. A patch-up job and a legacy of worry for the future. That was what had come out of the conversation.

  Sheila Maine wrote from America to say that the papers were full of the great opportunities in Ireland , and the numbers of people who were relocating there. She wondered if any of the girls she knew in Dublin would advise her. She had so much enjoyed meeting them all when she had been there. And hadn't that been a fun day when they had gone to the psychic in her caravan? Mrs Connor had told Sheila that her future was in her own hands and really and truly this was very sound. Everywhere she looked now she read the same advice, the same counsel. Why hadn't they known it years ago when they were just swept along with what everyone else thought, and did what other people did?

  Sheila wrote that her son Sean who was Annie's age was learning Irish dancing at a nearby class, and her daughter Kelly who was a very demanding three-year-old would join the babies' class in it next year. She was determined that the children would not grow up ignorant of their Irish heritage. She copied the letter to her sister Gertie, to Rosemary, to Ria and to Hilary. Sheila had particularly liked Hilary during her visit to Ireland and she urged her to come out to visit her in the school holidays.

  'How could I do that? She must be mad, they've no idea of money over there.' Hilary showed the invitation.

  'I
don't know, Hilary.' Ria sometimes felt that she spent her life assuring her sister that some things actually were within her reach. 'Suppose you were to book three months in advance, you'd get a great reduction and Sheila says it would cost you nothing out there.'

  'But what about Martin?' Hilary always had an argument against everything that was suggested.

  'Well, he could go with you if he'd like two weeks out in Connecticut which he very well might, or else go home and see his parents in the country. You know he says he wants to go back there more than you do.'

  Hilary frowned. It made sense only if you were as rich as Ria and Danny with no financial worries at all. Life was very strange the way the cards were dealt, she said again.

  Ria's patience was limited that day. Mona McCarthy had been around wondering would Ria help at a coffee morning, which was fine except that it meant she would have to ask someone to look after Brian for her. She couldn't ask her mother. Nora Johnson had such a network of social and professional activities that you had to book her days in advance. Today she would be ironing in one place, delivering leaflets about the Bring and Buy sale in aid of the animal refuge, visiting some of the old ladies in St Rita's. She couldn't break into all that.

  Gertie said it wasn't a good morning to leave Brian at the launderette for a couple of hours, because… well let's say… it wasn't a good morning. Gertie's own children were with her mother. That said it all. And never in a million years would Ria ask a neighbour like Frances Sullivan to look after him. It would be admitting that even as a non-working wife she couldn't organise her life. If only that pale wan Caroline, the strange sister of Colm in the restaurant, was more together then she could be drafted in for a couple of hours, but it always took her about three seconds too long to understand what you were saying, and Ria hadn't the time for it today.

  Hilary sat there turning the letter this way and that. Ria decided to take the chance. 'I'm going to ask you a favour, say no if you want to. I am very anxious to go up to Mona McCarthy's house for a variety of reasons.'

  'I'm sure you are,' Hilary sniffed.

  'None of them like you think, but it would suit me greatly if you minded Brian for me for three hours, then I'll come back and make you a huge gorgeous lunch. Yes or no?'

  'Why do you want to go there?'

  'That's a "no", I suppose,' Ria said.

  'Not necessarily. If you tell me why you want to go, then I'll stay.'

  'All right I will. I'm worried that the McCarthys might be in some kind of financial trouble. I want to see what I can find out, because if they are then it will affect Danny. Now that's the truth ~ take it or leave it. Yes or no?'

  'Yes,' said Hilary with a smile.

  Ria phoned a taxi, put on her good suit, her best silk scarf, took a freshly baked walnut cake from the wire tray where it was cooling and headed off to the McCarthys' large house six miles from Dublin. The drive was filled with smart cars and the sound of women's chatter was loud as she approached the door. It was touching to see Mona's face light up when she came in. Ria slipped out of her jacket and began to help with the practised smile of one who had been to many coffee mornings. It was all about making sure these comfortably off and often fairly lonely women had a good time and were warmly welcomed into a group. Their ten-pound entrance fee was not in itself so important as making them feel they belonged. This way they could later be persuaded to part with much larger sums of money at fashion shows, at glittering dinner dances, at film premieres.

  An elegant woman was introduced to Ria as Margaret Murray. 'You may know my husband, Ken. He's in the property business,' she said.

  Ria longed to tell her that Ken Murray was the first boy she had ever kissed many years ago, when she was fifteen and a half. That it had been horrible and he had told her she was boring. But she thought that Margaret Murray might not find this as funny in retrospect as she did, so she said nothing but had a little giggle to herself.

  'You're in good form,' Mona McCarthy said approvingly.

  'Remind me to tell you why later. This is all going very well, isn't it?'

  'Yes, I think they like coming here as a curiosity,' Mona said.

  'Why so?'

  'Well they speculate a lot, you know, about whether we are still solvent or not. Rumours around the place have us in the workhouse.' Mona looked remarkably calm as she refilled the coffee-pot from the two percolators.

  'And aren't you worried about this?' Ria asked.

  'No, Ria, if I worried every time that I hear something about Barney I'd be a very worried woman indeed. We've been poor before, and if it happens I imagine we could cope with it again. But I don't think it will happen. Barney is always a contingency-plan person, I feel sure there are a lot of safety nets along the way.' She was serene, almost like a ship as she sailed back into the room full of women whom she knew to be rather overinterested in what kept this extravagant lifestyle afloat.

  Colm Barry called when Ria and Hilary were having the promised enormous lunch. 'Well you two don't stint yourselves, I'm glad to see.' He seemed happy to accept their invitation to join them.

  'Oh, Ria can afford to buy the best cuts of meat,' Hilary said, reverting to type.

  'It's what she does with them that's so delicious.' Colm appreciated the cooking. 'And the way they're served.'

  'It's hard to get good fresh vegetables round here,' Ria said. 'They're very tired up at the corner and nowhere else is in a pram's walk really.'

  'Why don't you grow your own?' Colm suggested.

  'Oh Lord no. It would be such hard work digging it all out back there. Even to get the front tidied up was a major undertaking. Neither Danny nor I have the souls of gardeners, I'm afraid.'

  'I'd do it for you at the back if you like,' Colm offered.

  'Oh you can't do that,' Ria protested.

  'I have an ulterior motive. Suppose I was to make a proper kitchen garden out there and grow all the things I want for the restaurant in it, then you could have some too.'

  'Would it work?'

  'Yes, of course it would, that is if you don't have plans to have velvet lawns, water features, fountains or pergolas out there.'

  'No. I think we can safely say those aren't on the agenda,' Ria laughed easily.

  'Great, then we'll do it.'

  Ria noted with pleasure that Colm hadn't said they should wait to consult Danny. Unlike Barney McCarthy he seemed to regard her as a responsible adult capable of making a decision on her own. 'Will it be very heavy work, preparing the soil?'

  'I don't know yet.'

  'It's such a wilderness out there we have no real idea how much awful stuff there might be buried with old roots and rubble.'

  'But I need the exercise anyway so it's going to be something that benefits everyone. We all win, no one loses.'

  'Very few of those deals about, let me tell you,' Hilary said.

  And from that time on Colm became part of the background in their house in Tara Road. He let himself in silently through the wooden door that opened on to the back lane; he kept his gardening tools in a small makeshift hut at the back. He dug an area half the width of the house and the whole length of the garden. This left plenty of space for the children to play in. And as the months went on he erected a fence and covered it with a plant he called Mile a Minute or Russian vine.

  'It really looks rather nice you know,' Danny said thoughtfully one day. 'And the whole notion of mature kitchen garden at rear is a good selling-point.'

  'If we were to sell, which we're not going to do. I wish you wouldn't frighten me saying things like that, Danny,' Ria complained.

  'Listen, sweetheart, if you worked in a world where hardly anything else is discussed then you'd talk in auctioneer-speak too.' He was right, and what's more he was good-tempered and happy. He was very loving to Ria sometimes, dashing home from work saying he thought of her so much and deeply that he couldn't concentrate on anything else. They would go upstairs and draw the curtains. Once or twice Ria wondered what Colm workin
g in the garden might think.

  They didn't talk much about it but she knew that in Gertie's case it was a nightmare, usually only attempted by Jack when drunk. For Hilary it had almost ceased to exist. Martin had once said the only real reason for a man and woman to mate was the hope of producing a child, and that the urge and impetus just weren't there otherwise. He had only said it once, and afterwards confessed that he had been a bit depressed at the time and didn't really mean it, Hilary confided. But somehow it was there always in the air.

  Ria didn't know any details of Rosemary's sex life. But she was sure it must be very active in those perfect surroundings that she had created for herself. Everywhere she went men were attracted by her. Ria had sometimes seen Rosemary leave parties with men. Did she take them home, upstairs to that apartment which had featured in so many magazines? Probably. Rosemary wouldn't live like a nun. Still, it must be very unsettling to have to get to know different people in that way. To learn the intricacies and familiarities of another body instead of knowing exactly what worked for you. And for Danny. Ria knew that she was very, very lucky.

  The anxiety over the McCarthy finances seemed to have subsided. Danny didn't work so late at night. He took his little princess, Annie, out on walks and visits to the sea. He held the hand of his chubby son Brian as the child changed from stumbling to waddling and eventually to running away ahead of them.

  The back garden changed slowly and laboriously. Ria knew that it was much easier to learn the names of twenty plants for containers on a roof terrace than to understand Colm's discussion about double cropping and pest-proof barriers. She tried to sympathise when his sprouts all failed, when his great bamboo bean supports blew down in the wind and when the peas that he had tried to grow in hanging baskets produced hardly anything at all.

  'Why didn't you grow them in the ground?' Ria had asked innocently.

  'I was trying to make it nice for you to look out on. You know, a lot of hanging baskets on the back wall. They looked good, I thought.' He was very disappointed.