by Maeve Binchy
'There's a whole lot of face-cloths there, and if you put a little Dettol in the water…' She seemed helpless, unsure of how to start. 'If you like I could dab them for you, take any grit out?'
'I don't know…'
'Yes, sometimes it's easier if you do it yourself. Would I stay here on this chair while you do it, and tell you if I see more bits that need to be done?'
He got the first smile. 'That would be great.' He watched while the child touched her knee tentatively with the diluted disinfectant, and wiped away all the grit and earth. It was only a surface scratch, the bleeding was slight. 'I can't reach my elbow, will you do that, Colm?'
Gently he cleaned her arm and handed her a big fluffy towel. 'Now, pat it dry.'
'There might be spots of blood on the towel.' She looked anxious.
'All the more work for Gertie's launderette then,' he smiled.
They went into the cool dark bar of his restaurant. At the bar there were four high stools. He gestured her to one of them. 'Now, Miss Lynch, what's your pleasure?' he said.
'What do you think is nice, Colm?'
'Well, they say that in times of shock something with a lot of sugar is good. In fact they always recommend hot, sweet tea.'
'Ugh,' said Annie.
'I know, that's my view too. I'll tell you… what I always have is a St Clement's. It's a mixture of orange and lemon. How does that sound?'
'Great. I'd like that,' said Annie. 'Do you not drink real drinks then?'
'No, you see they don't agree with me. Something to do with my personality or metabolism or whatever… it's not clear exactly what causes it but they don't suit me.'
'How did you find out they didn't suit you?'
'I got a few little hints like once I started I couldn't stop.' He smiled wryly.
'Like drugs?' Annie asked.
'Just like drugs. So I had to stop altogether.'
'Do you miss not being able to drink real drinks, at parties and things?' Annie was interested.
'Do I miss it? No. I don't miss the way I was, which was out of control, I'm very glad not to be like that. But I suppose I wish I was the way other people are—you know, having a nice glass of wine or two of an evening, a couple of beers on a summer day. But I'm not able to stop after that so I can't start.' Annie looked sympathetic. 'However, there are lots of things I can do that others can't,' Colm said cheerfully. 'I can make wonderful sauces and great desserts that would take the sight out of your eyes.'
'Brian's awful friends want ice creams in silver-paper wrappers! Imagine!' Annie said disparagingly.
'I know. Isn't it disgusting!' Colm said, and they both began to laugh. Annie's laugh had a slightly hysterical tinge in it.
'Nothing happened out in the lane to make you fall, did it?' Colm asked.
The child's expression was guarded. 'No. Why?'
'No reason. Listen, will I walk home with you now?'
'I'm all right really, Colm.'
'Of course you are, don't we know that? But I have to go for a walk every day, all chefs must, it's a kind of rule, stops them getting big stomachs that keep falling into their saucepans.'
Annie laughed. It wasn't possible to think of Colm Barry having a tummy like that. He was nearly as slim as Dad. They set off together. Just as they came to the gate they saw Rosemary Ryan unloading the ice creams in a cool-bag from the back of her car. Annie stiffened. Colm noticed but said nothing.
'Heavens, Annie, what a terrible cut! Did you fall?'
'Yes.'
'She's okay now,' Colm said.
'It looks dreadful, where did it happen?'
'On the road in front of Colm's restaurant,' Annie said quickly.
Colm was surprised.
'And Colm came to your rescue.' Rosemary always smiled at Colm flirtatiously though it never did her any good.
'Exactly. I can't have people falling down in front of my premises. Bad for business,' he joked.
'You were lucky you didn't fall in front of the traffic.' Rosemary had lost interest in it, now she was hauling out the boxes of ice creams. They could hear the shouting and screaming of Brian's friends from the back garden. 'My public is waiting for me and the ice cream,' Rosemary laughed. 'I think we know which they are waiting for more.' She moved ahead of them through the basement and out to the back.
'Thanks, Colm.'
'Don't mention it.'
'It's just that it's… well, it's nobody's business really where I fell, is it?'
'Absolutely not.'
She felt he was owed some kind of explanation. 'I was looking for a cat, you see. I thought if I got a kitten and sort of kept it secretly for a bit… you know?'
'I know.' Colm was grave.
'So thanks for all the St Clement's and everything.'
'I'll see you round, Annie.'
Gran was terrific, she had kept sausages for Annie. 'I couldn't find you so I put them in the oven to keep warm.'
'You're great. Where are they all?'
'They're about to have the cake, Lady Ryan arranged sparklers.'
'Mam hates it when you call her that.' Annie giggled and then she winced at the pain in her elbow.
Her grandmother was full of concern. 'Let me wash that for you.'
'It's okay, Gran, it's done, Dettol and all. Look at Aunty Hilary with all those awful boys.'
'She loves them, she's brought a big dartboard where you throw rings on. There's fierce competition.'
'What's the prize?'
'Oh some game, Hilary knows what electronic games children of that age want from being up at the school, you know.'
'Why didn't Aunty Hilary have any children, Gran?'
'The Lord didn't send her any, that's all.'
'The Lord doesn't send children, Gran, you know that.'
'No not directly, but indirectly He does, and in your Aunty Hilary's case He just didn't.'
'Maybe she didn't like mating,' Annie said thoughtfully.
'What?' Nora Johnson was at a loss for words, which was very unlike her.
'Maybe she decided not to go through the whole business of getting them, like cats and rabbits you know. There must be some people who just don't like the thought of it.'
'Not many,' her grandmother said drily.
'I bet that's it, you could ask her.'
'It's not the thing you ask people, Annie, believe me.'
'I do, Gran, I know you couldn't ask her. There are some things you don't talk about at all, you just put away at the back of your mind. Isn't that right?'
'Absolutely right,' her grandmother said with enormous relief.
Later on the parents of Brian's friends came to collect their sons, and they stood in the warm summer evening in the back garden of Tara Road while the boys played and pummelled on, tiring themselves and each other out for bedtime. Annie watched her mother and father stand there in the centre of the group, passing around a tray of wine and little smoked salmon sandwiches. Dad's arm was around Mam's shoulder a lot of the time. Ria knew from the girls at school that parents still want to be with each other and make love and all that, even when they didn't want children. It seemed such an unlikely thing to want to do. Horrible even.
There was much sympathy about the grazed knee, and when she went to bed, Mam came into her room. She sat in Annie's big armchair, moving the furry toy animals out of the way.
'You've been very quiet all afternoon and evening, Annie. Are those knees all right?'
'Fine, Mam, don't fuss.'
'I'm not fussing, I'm just sorry for your poor old knees and your elbow too. Like you would be if I fell.'
'I know, Mam. Sorry. You weren't fussing, but I'm fine.'
'And how did it happen?'
'I was running, I told you.'
'It's not like you to fall, you're such a graceful girl. When Hilary and I were your age we were falling all the time, but you never do. I think it's because your dad calls you a princess you decided to behave like one.'
Her mother's look was so
fond and warm that Annie reached out for her hand. 'Thanks, Mam,' she said, eyes full.
'I was so exhausted out there today, Annie, with those tomboys. Honestly they're like young bullocks head-butting each other, not like children at all. When I think what an ease it's always been to have your friends, but that's the difference between the sexes for you. Would you like a hot drink? You've had a bad shock today.'
'What do you mean?' Annie's eyes were wary.
'The fall, it jars the system even at your age.'
'Oh that. No, no I'm fine.'
Ria kissed her daughter's flushed face and closed the door. She had spoken only the truth, it had been a killing day. But then wasn't she so well off compared to everyone else? Her mother going home alone with that absurd little dog. Hilary crossing the city with her dartboard in a big carrier bag to a man who wouldn't hold her in his arms any more because they couldn't make children. Gertie facing who knew what horrors in the flat above the launderette. Rosemary alone in that marble palace of a penthouse.
While she, Ria, had everything she could ever have wanted.
CHAPTER THREE
Sometimes they saw mothers and daughters together in the shops. Talking normally, holding up a skirt or a dress. Nodding or frowning but concerned. Like friends. One going into a cubicle to try something on, the other holding four more outfits outside. Perhaps they weren't real people, Ria told herself. Maybe they were actresses or from advertising. Judging from the eleven confrontations she had had with her own daughter in an hour and a half it was very hard to believe that any teenager and her mother would go shopping together from choice. These other people were only playing at being Happy Families. Surely?
Annie had this gift token from her grandmother. It was for more money than she had ever spent before on clothes. Up to now Annie had only bought shoes, jeans and T-shirts on her own. But this was different, it was for something to wear for all the parties this summer. It had seemed normal for Ria to go with her and help her choose. It had even seemed like fun. That was some hours ago. Now it seemed like the most foolish thing either of them had ever done in their lives.
When Annie had looked at something with leather and chains, Ria had gasped aloud. 'I knew you were going to be like that, I knew it in my bones,' Annie cried.
'No, I mean, it's just… I thought…' Ria was wordless.
'What did you think? Go on, Mam, say what you thought, don't just stand there gulping.' Annie's face was red and angry.
Ria was not going to say that she thought the outfit was like an illustration in a magazine article called 'Sado-Masochistic Wardrobe Unearthed'. 'Why don't you try it on?' she said weakly.
'If you think I'm going to put it on now that I've seen your face, and let you make fun of me…'
'Annie, I'm not making fun of you. We don't know what it looks like until you put it on, maybe it's…'
'Oh Mam, for God's sake.'
'But I mean it, and it's your token.'
'I know it is. Gran gave it to me to buy something I liked, not some awful revolting thing with a butch tartan waistcoat like you want me to wear.'
'No, no. Be reasonable, Annie, I haven't steered you towards anything at all, have I?'
'Well, what are you here for then, Mam? Answer me that. If you have nothing to suggest, what are you doing? What are we doing here?'
'Well, I thought we were looking…'
'But you never look. You never look at anything or anyone, otherwise you wouldn't wear the kind of clothes you do.'
'Look, I know you don't want the same clothes as I do.'
'Nobody wants the same clothes as you do, Mam, honestly. I mean, have you thought about it for one minute?'
Ria looked in one of the many mirrors around. She saw reflected a flushed angry teenager, slim with straight blonde hair, holding what appeared to be a bondage garment. Beside her was a tired-looking woman with a great head of frizzy hair tumbling on to her shoulders, and a black V-neck sweater worn over a flowing black-and-white skirt. She had put on comfortable flat shoes for shopping. This was not a day when Ria had rushed thoughtlessly out of the house, she had remembered the mirrors that came on you suddenly in dress shops. She had combed her hair, put on make-up and even rubbed shoe cream into her shoes and handbag. It had all looked fine in the hall mirror before they had left Tara Road. It didn't look great here.
'I mean, it's not even as if you were really old,' Ria's daughter Annie said. 'Lots of people your age haven't given up.'
With great difficulty Ria forced herself not to take her daughter by the hair and drag her from the shop. Instead she looked thoughtfully back into the mirror. She was thirty-seven. How old did she look? Thirty-five? That's all. Her curly hair made her young, she didn't look forty or anything. But then what did she know?
'Oh Mam, stop sucking in your cheeks and making silly faces, you look ridiculous.' When had it happened, whatever it was that made Annie hate her, scorn her? They used to get on so well.
Ria made one more superhuman effort. 'Listen we mustn't talk about me, it's your treat, your gran wants you to get something nice and suitable.'
'No she doesn't, Mam. Do you never listen? She said I was to get whatever I wanted, she never said one word about it being suitable.'
'I meant…'
'You mean anything that would look well on a poodle at a dog show.' Annie turned away with tears in her eyes.
Near by a woman and her daughter were looking through a rail of shirts. 'They must have a pink one,' the girl was saying excitedly. 'Come on, we'll ask the assistant. You look terrific in pink. Then we'll go and have a coffee.'
They seemed an ordinary mother and daughter, not just a couple sent over by central casting to depress real people. Ria turned away so that nobody could see the tears of envy in her eyes.
Danny had organised the people to deliver the sander at eleven o'clock. Ria wanted to be home to greet them. It was such a peculiar idea, to take up their carpets and bring out the beauty of the wooden floors. They didn't look a bit beautiful to her, full of nails and discoloration. But Danny knew about these things, she accepted this. His work and his skill was selling houses to people who knew everything, and these people knew that exposed wooden floors and carefully chosen rugs were good, while wall-to-wall carpeting was bad, and obviously concealed unmerciful horrors beneath. You could rent a sander for a weekend and walk around behind it while it juddered and peeled off the worst bit of your floor. That was what lay ahead today and tomorrow.
Would Annie think she was sulking if she left her now? Would she be relieved? 'Annie, you know your father arranged that this sanding machine come today?' she began tentatively.
'Mam, I'm not spending the weekend doing that, it's not fair.' 'No, no, of course not, I wasn't going to suggest it. I was going to say I should go home and be there when they arrive, but I don't want to abandon you.' Annie stared at her wordlessly. 'Not that I'm much help, really. I'm inclined to get confused when I see a lot of clothes together.’ Ria said.
Annie's face changed. Suddenly she reached out and gave her mother an unexpected hug. 'You're not the worst, Mam,' she said grudgingly. From Annie this was high, high praise these days.
Ria went home with a lighter heart.
Ria had just got in the door of her house in Tara Road when she heard the gate rattle and the familiar cry: 'Ree-ya, Ree-ya'. A call known all over the area, as regular as the Angelus or the sound of the ice-cream van. It was her mother and the dog, the misshapen and unsettled animal Pliers, a dog never at ease in Ria and Danny's home in Tara Road, but because of circumstances forced to spend a lot of his disturbed life there. Ria's mother was always going somewhere where dogs weren't allowed, and Pliers pined if left at home alone. Pliers yowled in Ria's house, but for some reason this was not regarded as pining and was considered preferable.
Ria's mother never came in unannounced or uninvited. She had made a great production out of this from the time she had moved to the little house near them. Never assume that
you are automatically welcome in your children's homes. That was her motto, she always said. It seemed a loveless kind of motto and also totally inappropriate since she called unannounced and uninvited almost every day at Ria and Danny's house. She thought that this shout at the gate was somehow enough warning and preparation. Today reminded Ria of being back at school when her mother would come to the playground or to the park where her pals had gathered, always calling 'Ree-ya'. Her school friends used to take up the cry. And now here she was, a middle-aged woman and nothing had changed, her mother still calling her name as if it were some kind of a war cry.
'Come in, Mam.' She tried to put a welcome in her voice. The dog would worry at the sanding machine when it arrived and bark at it, then he would set up one of his yowls so plaintively that they would assume his paw had been trapped in it. Of all days to have to babysit Pliers this must be one of the worst.
Nora Johnson bustled in, sure as always of her welcome. Hadn't she called out from the gate to say she was on her way? 'There was a young pup on the bus, asked me for my bus pass. I said to him to keep a civil tongue in his head.' Ria wondered why her mother, such a known dog lover, always used the word pup as a term of abuse. There were pups everywhere these days, in shops, driving vans, hanging about.
'What was so bad about him asking you that?'
'How dare he assume that I am at the age to have a bus pass? There's no way that he should think with only half a look out of his slits of eyes that I am a pensioner.' Of course Ria's mother despite her lemon-coloured linen suit and black polka-dot scarf looked exactly the age she was, the young pup on the bus had just been thoughtless. At his age he assumed everyone over forty was geriatric. But there was no point in trying to explain any of this to her mother. Ria busied herself getting out the tray of shortbread she had made the night before. The coffee mugs were ready. Soon the kitchen would be full of people, the men with the sanding machine, Danny wanting to learn how it worked, Brian and some of his school friends; there was always something on offer to eat in the Lynches' kitchen, unlike their own. Annie might be back with some amazing outfit and Kitty Sullivan whom she had met in the shopping mall.
