by Maeve Binchy
'No!' Rosemary had dropped the dress on the floor and come over to embrace her.
'Yes. It's true. She's called Bernadette.' Ria's voice was high now and hysterical. 'Bernadette! Can you imagine it! I didn't know they still called people of twenty-two that. He's left me, he's going to live with her. It's all over. Danny's gone. Oh Jesus, Rosemary, what am I going to do? I love him so much, Rosemary. What am I going to do?'
Rosemary held her friend in her arms and muttered into the dark curly hair, 'Shush, shush, it can't be over, it's all right, it's all right.'
Ria pulled away. 'It's not going to be all right. He's leaving me. For her. For Bernadette.'
'And would you have him back?' Rosemary was always very practical.
'Of course I would. You know that.' Ria wept.
'Then we must get him back,' said Rosemary, picking up a table napkin and wiping Ria's tear-stained face just as you would a baby's.
'Gertie, can I come in?'
'Oh Rosemary, it's not such a good time. I wonder if I could leave it to another time… it's just…' Rosemary walked past her. Gertie's home was a mess. That was nothing new but this time there actually seemed to be broken furniture. A lamp was at a rakish angle and a small table now in three pieces stood in the corner. Broken china and glass seemed to have been swept to one side. There was a stain of spilled coffee or something on the carpet.
T'm sorry, you see…' Gertie began.
'Gertie, I haven't come here at nine o'clock in the morning to give your home marks out of ten. I've come for your help.'
'What is it?' Gertie was justifiably alarmed. What kind of help could she possibly give to Rosemary Ryan who ran her life like clockwork, who looked like a fashion model, had a home like something from a magazine and a successful job? Something terrible must have happened if she had come to Gertie for help.
'You're needed up in Ria's house now. You have to come, I'll drive you. Come on, get your coat.'
'I can't, I can't today.'
'You have to, Gertie. It's as simple as this, Ria needs you. Look at all she does for you when you need her.'
'No, not now. You see, there was a bit of trouble here last night.'
'You do surprise me.' Rosemary looked around the room scornfully.
'And we made it all up and I said to Jack I wouldn't go running to the two of you any more.’ Gertie lowered her voice. 'He said that it was the women friends I had who were coming between us… making the problems.'
'Bullshit,' Rosemary said.
'Shush, he's asleep. Don't wake him.'
'I don't care if he wakes or not. Your friend who has never once asked you a favour in her whole life wants you to come round to her house and you're bloody coming.'
'Not today, tell her I'm sorry. She'll understand. Ria knows what the problems are in this house, she'll forgive me for not coming this once.'
'She might, I won't. Ever.'
'But friends forgive and understand. Ria's my friend, you're my friend.'
'And that big ignorant bruiser in a drunken sleep is not a friend, we have to assume? Is that what you're telling me? Get sense, Gertie, what's the worst he can do to you? Another couple of teeth? Maybe you should have them all out next time you go to Jimmy Sullivan. Make it easier. Just whip out your dentures as soon as lover boy starts looking crooked.'
'You're a very hard, cruel woman, Rosemary,' Gertie said.
'Am I? A moment ago I was a sympathetic understanding friend. Well, I'll tell you what you, are, Gertie. You are a weak, selfish, whining victim and you deserve to get beaten up as much as you do, and possibly more because you haven't a shred of kindness or decency in you. If someone told anyone else on God's earth that Ria Lynch needed them they'd be there like a shot. But not you of course, not Gertie.'
Rosemary had never been so angry. She walked to the door without even looking back to see how Gertie was taking it. Before she got to her car she heard steps behind her. Out in the daylight she saw the marks on Gertie's face, bruises that had not been visible indoors because of the dim light in the house. The women looked at each other for a moment.
'He's left her. The bastard.'
'Danny? Never! He wouldn't.'
'He has,' said Rosemary, starting up the car.
Ria was still sitting in her party dress. That, more than anything, underlined the seriousness of it all. 'I haven't told Gertie anything except that Danny says he's moving out. I don't know any more anyway, and we don't want to, or have to. All we want is to help you get through today.' Rosemary was completely in charge.
'You're very good to come, Gertie.' Ria's voice was small.
'Why wouldn't I? Look at all you do for me.' Gertie looked at the floor as she spoke, hating to catch Rosemary's eye. 'So where do we start?'
'I don't know.' The normally confident Ria was at a loss. 'It's just that I couldn't bear to talk to anyone else except you two.'
'Well, who might come in on top of you? Colm?'
'No, he stays in the garden. He knows anyway, I fainted in the restaurant last night.'
Rosemary and Gertie exchanged quick glances. 'So who else is likely to come?' Rosemary asked and then with one voice she and Gertie said, 'Your mother!'
'Oh sweet Jesus, I couldn't face my mother today,' Ria said.
'Right,' Gertie said. 'Do we head her off at the pass? I could do that. I could go and thank her for lending me the dog, tell her I'm sorry I tied him up at the gate.'
'Why did you want him?' Ria asked.
It was no time for disguises. 'For protection. Jack's a bit afraid of dogs. He was very upset yesterday what with being taken in by the Guards.'
'But not kept in, unfortunately,' said Rosemary.
'Yes, but what kind of gaols would they need if you took in every drunk?' Gertie was philosophical. 'I could tell your mother you had flu or something.'
Rosemary shook her head. 'No, that would be worse than ever. She'd come over like Florence Nightingale with potions and try to book you into that geriatric home of hers. We could say you'd gone out shopping, that there'd be no one at home. Or would that be an odd sort of thing to say?'
Ria didn't seem to know. 'She might come round to see what I bought,' she said.
'Could you say you have to go out and meet someone?'
'Who?' Ria asked. There was a silence.
Rosemary spoke. 'We'll say that there's a free voucher in Quentin's, that you and I were meant to be going there today but now we can't. And since it's only valid today your mother and Hilary are to go instead. How about that?' She was crisp and decisive, as she must be at work, looking around to see how the suggestion was received.
'You don't know how slow they are,' Ria said. 'They'd never do anything unexpected like that.'
'Hilary would hate to miss the bargain, she'd go just to get value. Your mother would love to see the style. They'll go. I'll book it.'
Gertie was reassuring. 'Anyone would get dressed up and go to Quentin's. I'd even stir myself for that, and that's saying something.' She managed a watery smile from her poor bruised face.
Ria felt a lump in her throat. 'Sure, sure they'll go,' she said.
'I'll pick up Annie and Brian from school and take them back to my place, to have supper and watch a video.' Rosemary saw the look of doubt on Ria's face about this and said quickly, 'Ill make it such a good video that they won't be able to refuse, oh and I'll invite the awful Kitty as well.' Ria grinned. That would do it. 'And lastly, Ria, I'll also book you a hair appointment in my place, they really are very good.'
'It's too late for hairdos and makeovers, Rosemary. We're way beyond all that. I couldn't do it, it would be meaningless to me.'
'How else are you going to fill in the hours until he comes home?' she asked. There was no answer. Rosemary made two brisk phone calls to busy professionals like herself. No time was wasted in long, detailed explanations. To Brenda at Quentin's who heard that a Mrs Johnson and a Mrs Moran would be going as her guests, and were to be treated royally as winner
s of a voucher, given everything they asked for. Then to the hairdressing salon, where she booked Mrs Lynch in for a style cut and shampoo and also a manicure.
'I'm not usually so feeble, but I don't think I have the energy to explain all this about Quentin's to my mother and Hilary,' Ria began.
'You don't have to, I will,' Rosemary said.
'The house is a mess.'
'It won't be when you get back,' promised Gertie.
'I don't believe any of this is happening,' Ria said slowly.
'That's what happens, it's nature's way of coping. It's so you can get on with other things,' said Gertie who knew what she was talking about.
'It's like an anaesthetic, you have to go on autopilot for a while,' said Rosemary, who had an explanation for everything but would have had no idea what it felt like to see a huge pit of despair open in front of you.
Ria didn't really remember the visit to the hairdressing salon. She told them she was very tired and hadn't slept all night, they would have to excuse her if she was a little distracted. She tried to show an interest in the hot oil treatment for her thick curly hair, and tried to make a decision about the shape and colour of her nails. But mainly she let them get on with it, and when it came to paying they said that it was on Rosemary Ryan's account.
Ria looked at her watch. It was lunch-time. If everything had gone according to plan her mother and sister would be sitting in one of Dublin's grandest restaurants having a meal they believed to be free. It was yet one more extraordinary aspect to this totally unreal day.
In Quentin's Hilary and her mother were offered an Irish coffee after their lunch. 'Do you think it's included on the voucher?' Mrs Johnson hissed. Emboldened by the excellent Italian wine Hilary decided to be assertive. 'I rather think it is. A place like this wouldn't stint on little extras.' It turned out to be very much included, the elegant lady who ran the place told them, and a second was brought to the table without their having to decide.
While they waited for the taxi, they were asked as a favour to taste a new liqueur that the restaurant was thinking of putting on the menu; they needed some valued customers' views before they made a final decision. The taxi journey back to Nora Johnson's house was something of a blur. She was relieved to have been told by that bossy Rosemary that Ria wouldn't be at home. Otherwise she might have felt she should call around and give a report on how the lunch had gone. She would telephone instead, when she had had a little rest.
There were two more hours before Danny came home. Ria had never known time pass so slowly. She walked aimlessly around the house touching things, the table in the hall where Danny left his keys. She ran her hand over the back of the chair where he sat at night and often fell asleep with papers from work on his lap. She picked up the glass jug he had given her for her birthday. It had the word Ria engraved on it. He had loved her enough last November to have her name put on a jug and yet in April another woman was pregnant with his child. It was too much to take in.
Ria looked at the cushion she had embroidered for him. The two words 'Danny Boy'. It had taken her weeks of unpicking the stitches to finish it. She could remember his face when she gave it to him. 'You must love me nearly as much as I love you to do something like that for me,' he had said. Nearly as much!
She looked at their new music centre. Only last Christmas, less than six months ago, he had spent hour after hour testing where the speakers would be best. He had bought her so many compact discs, all the Ella Fitzgeralds she had loved, and she had got him the big band sound he liked, the Dorsey brothers, Glenn Miller. The children had groaned at their taste. Perhaps the youthful Bernadette played the strange music that Annie and Kitty liked. Perhaps Danny Lynch pretended he liked it too. Soon he would be home to tell her things like this.
Ria saw Colm Barry in the garden. He was turning the soil but in a desultory way, as if he weren't really there to dig vegetables but to look after her in case she needed it.
Gertie phoned Rosemary at seven o'clock. 'I just rang to say… well, I don't know why I rang,' she said.
'You know why you rang, you rang because it's seven o'clock and we're both mad with worry.'
'Are the children there?'
'Yes, that bit worked anyway. I nearly had to give my body to get that video but I got it.'
'That'll keep them entertained. Do you think they'll patch it up?'
'They'll have to,' said Rosemary. 'They've too much to lose, both of them.'
'But what about the baby? The girl who's pregnant?'
'That's probably what they're talking about this minute.'
'Do you say prayers at all, Rosemary?'
'No, not these days. Do you?'
'No, I do deals, I suppose. I promise God to do things if Jack stops, whatever.'
Rosemary bit her lip. It must have cost Gertie a lot to admit this. 'Do they work, these deals?'
'What do you think?'
'No, I suppose not all the time.' Rosemary was being diplomatic.
'I've done a deal today. I've told God that if he gets Danny back for Ria, I'll well… I'll do something I've been promising to do for a long time.'
'I hope it's not to turn the other cheek again or anything,' Rosemary said before she could stop herself.
'No, quite the contrary as it happens,' Gertie said and hung up.
At seven o'clock Ria turned down the volume control on the answering machine. She didn't want to be disturbed by any more drunken messages from her mother and sister who appeared to have become legless at the restaurant where they had lunch. There were also messages from other people. A query from her brother-in-law Martin to know where Hilary was. Dekko's mother to say that there would be a babysitting opportunity for Brian at the weekend. The hire shop confirming the rental of the sanding machine for next weekend. A woman organising a class reunion lunch who wanted addresses of others who had been at school with them.
Ria would not have been able to talk to any one of them today. What did people do without answering machines? She remembered the day they had installed it and how they had laughed at Danny's attempts to record a convincing message. 'We have to face it, I'm just not an actor,' he had said. But he had been an actor, a very successful one for months. Years maybe.
She sat down and waited for Danny Lynch to come back to Tara Road.
He didn't call out as he usually did. There was no, 'Yoo hoo, sweetheart, I'm back.' He didn't leave his keys on the hall table. He looked pale and anxious. If things were normal she would have worried, wondered if he was getting flu, begged him to take more time off from the office, to relax more. But things were not normal so she just looked at him and waited for him to speak.
'It's very quiet here,' he said eventually.
'Yes, isn't it?'
They could have been strangers who had just met. He sat down and put his head in his hands. Ria said nothing. 'How do you want to do this?' he said.
'You said we must talk, Danny, so talk.'
'You're making it very hard for me.'
'I'm sorry, did you say that I am making it hard? Is that what you said?'
'Please, I'm going to try to be as honest as I can, there will be no more lies or hiding things. I'm not proud of any of this but don't try and trip me up with words and phrases. It's only going to make it worse.' She looked at him and said nothing. 'Ria, I beg you. We know each other too well, we know what every word means, every silence even.'
She spoke slowly and carefully. 'No, I don't know you at all. You say there'll be no more lies, no more hiding things. You see, I didn't know there had been any lies or any hiding things, I thought we were fine.'
'No, you didn't. You can't have. Be honest.'
'I am, Danny. I'm being as honest as I ever have been. If you know me as you claim you do, then you must see that.'
'You thought that this was all there was?'
'Yes.'
'And you didn't think it had all changed. You thought we were just the same as when we got married?' He seemed astounded
.
'Yes, the same. Older, busier. More tired, but mainly the same.'
'But…' he couldn't go on.
'But what?'
'But we have nothing to say to each other any more, Ria. We make household arrangements, we rent a sander, we get things out of the freezer, we make lists. That's not living. That's not a real life.'
'You rented the sander,' she said. 'I never wanted it.'
'That's about the level of our conversation nowadays, sweetheart. You know this, you're just not admitting it.'
'You're going to leave, leave this house and me and Annie and Brian… is that what's happening?'
'You know it's not the same any more, like it was.'
'I don't, I don't know that.'
'You can't tell me that for you everything's perfect?'
'It's not totally perfect, you work too hard. Well, you're out too much, maybe it's not work after all. I thought it was.'
'A lot of it is,' he said ruefully.
'But apart from that I thought everything was fine, and I had no idea that you weren't happy here with us all.'
'It's not that.'
She leaned over and looked him right in the eyes. 'But what is it, Danny? Please? Look, you wanted to talk, we're talking. You wanted me to be calm, I'm being calm. I'm being as honest as you are. What is it? If you say you weren't unhappy then why are you going? Tell me so that I'll understand. Tell me.'
'There's nothing left, Ria. It's nobody's fault, it happens all the time to people.'
'It hasn't happened to me,' she said simply.
'Yes it has but you won't face it. You just want to go on acting.'
'I was never acting, not for one minute.'
'I don't mean in a bad sense, I mean playing Happy Families.'
'But we are a happy family, Danny.'
'No, sweetheart, there's more, for both of us. We're not old people, we don't have to ruin ourselves and put up with the way it all turned out.'
'It turned out fine. Don't we have the most marvellous children and a lovely home? Tell me, what more do you want?'
'Oh Ria, Ria. I want to be somebody, to have a future and a dream and to start over and get things right.'
