Tara Road

by Maeve Binchy

  'Yes, I forgot. Of course you did.' She was totally calm now.

  'So now will you agree that maybe some year we could talk about your doing this, you know, organising a house exchange to the States. It's a big market actually, and safer than time share. Barney was only talking…'

  I'm going on July the first, she's coming that day. The children can come out to me on August the first. I've checked the flights, there are seats available, but we need to book soon.' Her voice was very steady and she seemed very sure of what she was saying.

  Danny reached out and unwillingly dragged Marilyn Vine's envelope to him to look at the contents. That was the moment when Ria knew she had won and that the trip was on.

  Marilyn sent a very short e-mail to Greg at the University in Hawaii:

  Very much regret not getting in touch about my summer plans. Please call me at home tonight at any time that suits you and I will explain everything. Again many sincere regrets,

  Marilyn

  He called at 8.00 p.m. She was waiting and answered immediately.

  'It must be about three o'clock in the afternoon there,' Marilyn said.

  'Marilyn, I didn't call to discuss the different time zones, what's happening?'

  I'm truly very sorry and Heidi is distraught over it all, as you can imagine. Another hour and I would have e-mailed you asking you to call.'

  'Well I'm calling now.'

  'I want to get away from here. I find it very stifling.'

  'I know, so did I. That's why I arranged for us to come here.' His voice was uncomprehending. He had been so sure she would go to Hawaii with him, so devastated when she had said she wasn't able to face it.

  'We've been through all that before, Greg.'

  'We have most certainly not been through it as you say. I am sitting out here six thousand miles away without any understanding of why you are not here with me.'

  'Please, Greg?'

  'No, you can't just say "Please Greg" and expect me to understand, be somehow inspired. And what are your summer plans as you call them? Am I going to be told about them or must I wait for more conflicting messages from half the faculty to tell me that you're joining me here or not?'

  'I can't apologise enough for that.'

  'Where are you going, Marilyn?' His voice was cold now.

  'I'm going to Ireland on July the first.'

  'Ireland? he said.

  She could see his face, lined and sun-tanned, and his glasses pushed up on his forehead, his hair beginning to thin a little in the front. He would be wearing a pair of faded chinos and maybe one of those very bright primary-colour shirts which looked just fine in the glare and heat of the islands but looked overdone and touristy anywhere else.

  'We were there years ago together. Do you remember?'

  'Of course I remember, we were on a conference for three days and then three days touring the west, where it rained all the time.'

  'I'm not going for the weather, I'm going for some peace.'

  'Marilyn, it's very dangerous in your state of mind to go and bury yourself in some cabin on the side of a mountain there.'

  'No I'm not doing that. It's a big suburban house actually, in a classy part of Dublin, old Victorian building. It looks lovely, four storeys altogether and there's a big garden. I'll be very happy there.'

  'You can't be serious.'

  'But I am. I've arranged an exchange with the woman that owns it, she's coming here to Tudor Drive.'

  'You're giving our house to a total stranger?'

  'I've told her that you may possibly come back, that it's not likely but that work may bring you back, she quite realises that.'

  'Oh, very generous of her, and will her husband be coming back from time to time to visit you possibly?'

  'No, they're separated.'

  'Like us I suppose,' he said. 'For all the phrases we wrap it up in, we are separated, aren't we, Marilyn?' He sounded very bleak.

  'Not in my mind, we're not. We are just having time apart this year; we've been through that a hundred times. Do you want to hear about Ria?'

  'Who?'

  'Ria Lynch, the woman who's coming.'

  'No, I don't.' Greg hung up.

  Heidi Franks was so upset at having opened her mouth to Greg Vine in Hawaii that she had to go to the rest room and have a weep at her own stupidity. She had obviously created a very awkward situation. And yet how was she meant to have guessed that the husband knew nothing of the wife's plans?

  They were an immensely compatible couple, and nobody thought for a moment that this temporary separation while Greg was in Hawaii meant any rift in the marriage. For one thing he called and sent e-mails regularly, and also sent postcards to various faculty members always reporting some little bit of news he had learned from Marilyn. So how could anyone be blamed for assuming that Greg knew his wife's plans?

  Still it was very upsetting, and that grey drained look on Marilyn's face as she realised that Heidi had been blabbing away on the telephone would be hard to forget. Heidi dabbed her eyes; her face looked blotchy and dry. Her hair was a mess. Oh, how she wished that Marilyn were the kind of person that she could apologise to properly. And maybe they might even both be a bit tearful together. Then Marilyn would tell her what it was all about, swear her to secrecy over whatever it was that was happening, and Heidi would be totally diplomatic. Because the maddening thing was that normally she actually was discreet. But this would not happen. Marilyn was stoic and unbending. Nonsense, she had said. Please don't mention it, it was a matter of timing. Then the subject had been closed.

  Heidi felt wretched. Tonight there was a cocktail party to say farewell to a lecturer in the Mathematics Department. Henry had said he would like her to go. These were occasions when the older wives always dressed up to kill. Heidi looked once more with displeasure at her flaking skin and bird's-nest hair. It would take more than cold eye-pads to restore those sad red eyes to anything approaching elegance. She made a sudden and rare decision to take the afternoon off and go to Carlotta's Beauty Salon out in Westville. Carlotta, who specialised in 'treatments for the maturer skin', would look after her.

  It was wonderful to lie back and let Carlotta get on with the repair job. Heidi felt herself relaxing and feeling better by the moment. Carlotta, with her big dark eyes, was both attractive and motherly-looking at the same time. She was immaculately groomed, a perfect advertisement for her own salon. She had come to live in Westville from California over ten years ago and opened a very smart and successful salon, employing six local women.

  She had been married, it was rumoured at least three times, in her youth. Children were not spoken of. There was no husband around at the present time. But everyone knew that if Carlotta wanted one, one would appear. One might even detach himself from where he was already meant to be secured. She was a very exotic, charming, not to mention financially secure, woman. Whichever side of forty she was, and this was often debated in Westville, Carlotta would have few problems in finding husband number four when she set out to look for him.

  She suggested a herbal facial for Heidi, and a scalp massage. Nothing too rushed, nothing too expensive. Heidi vowed that she would come to this restful place regularly. She owed it to herself. Henry had his golf; it was only fair that she should have something relaxing also. As the firm capable hands massaged her throat and neck Heidi began to forget the sad, strained face of Marilyn Vine who had planned to take two months off travelling somewhere without informing her husband.

  'How is Marilyn getting along these days?' Carlotta asked unexpectedly.

  Carlotta lived next door to the Vines. Heidi had totally forgotten. But she was not going to be caught twice in one day. This time she would say absolutely nothing about Marilyn's plan and intentions. 'I do see her from time to time in the office, but I don't really know how she's getting along. She keeps herself very much to herself. You know her much better than I do, Carlotta, living so near and everything. Do you see much of her?'

  Carlotta spok
e easily about everyone but she never actually gave out any detailed information. She spoke in warm generalities. They were wonderful neighbours, she said. You couldn't live beside better people than the Vines. And they kept their property so well. Everyone else on Tudor Drive had begun to smarten themselves up since Marilyn got going. She just loved those trees and flowers.

  'Does she come to the salon?' Heidi asked.

  'No, she's not really into skin care.'

  'Still, this would be such a treat for her,' Heidi said.

  'I'm glad you feel it relaxing.' Carlotta was pleased. 'But anyway, even if I were thinking about it, this isn't the time with her trip and everything.'

  'Her trip?'

  'Didn't she tell you? She's going to Ireland for two months, exchanging homes with a friend of hers there or something.'

  'When did she tell you this?'

  'This morning when we were putting out the trash. She had just fixed it up, she seemed very pleased. Longest conversation I've had with her for a long time.'

  'Ireland…' Heidi said thoughtfully. 'What on earth is taking her all the way to Ireland?'

  'America!' said Rosemary. 'I don't believe it.'

  'I hardly believe it myself,' Ria admitted.

  'And what does everyone say?' Rosemary wanted to know.

  'You mean what does Danny say?'

  'Yes I suppose I do, to be honest.'

  'Well, he's horrified of course. But mainly I think because of having the children for a month, that doesn't suit the little love-nest at all.'

  'So what's he going to do?'

  'Well, he is going to have to work that out. I'll be at Kennedy to meet them on August the first. July is his business.' She sounded much stronger, more resourceful somehow.

  Rosemary looked at her with admiration. 'You really have thought this through, haven't you? You'll have the whole place sussed out by the time the children get there, you'll know where to take them, how to entertain them and everything. You'll really need a month to get it together.'

  'I need the month to get myself together. This month is for me, they'll find plenty to do when they get there. Here, let me show you pictures of the house.'

  Rosemary was as fascinated with the change in her friend as she was with the pictures of a beautiful garden and a swimming pool in a small town in Connecticut. It might be just false energy but Ria certainly looked as if she had some life in her. Up to now she had been like somebody sleep-walking.

  'I'm not going,' Annie said.

  'Fine,' her mother replied.

  This startled Annie. She had expected that she would be persuaded and coaxed. Things were certainly changing round here.

  Brian was looking at the photographs. 'Look, they have a basket beside their garage, I wonder do they have a ball or should we bring one?'

  'Of course they have a ball,' Annie said loftily.

  'Look at the pool, it's like something in a hotel.'

  Annie reached for the picture again. But her face was still mutinous. 'It's ridiculous us going out there,' she said.

  Ria said nothing in reply, she just continued to set the table for breakfast. She had moved the big chair with the carved arms where Danny used to sit. Not a big public statement, she had just put it in a corner with a pile of magazines and newspapers on it. She always sat at different parts of the table herself trying to vary things, trying not to leave the yawning gap where the children's father used to sit.

  It was surprising how she still expected him to come in the door saying: 'Sweetheart, did I have one awful day, it's good to be home.' Had he said that on the days when he had been making love to Bernadette? The thought made her shiver sometimes. How little she had known him and what he wanted in life. Ria found it almost impossible to concentrate on the trip to America at times, there was so much buzzing around in her head. Those times he had been working late, she had been so understanding and planned food that wouldn't be dried up when he came back. All those nights when he fell asleep exhausted in the big chair, perhaps it was exhaustion from making love to a young girl.

  Weeks of waking with a shock at 4.00 a.m. in her empty bed and trying to remember the last time they had made love there, and wondering what he thought as he was planning to leave her and live in another home.

  If she lived on her own Ria knew that she would almost certainly be quite mad by now. It was having to put on a face for the children that kept some hold of her sanity. She looked at them as they sat at the table, Brian looking at the pictures of a big basketball net fixed to a wall and the swimming pool with its tiled surrounds, Annie pushing the cuttings and pictures around sulkily. A wave of pity for them came over her. These were children who were having to face an entirely different summer than the one they had a right to expect. Ria would be very gentle with them.

  She answered Annie thoughtfully. 'Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous to go there, but it has a lot going for it as well. It would be a new experience for us all to see America and no hotel bills to pay. And then of course there would be someone who would come here and mind this house for us all, that's important.'

  'But who is she?' Annie groused.

  'It's all there in the letter, love. I left it for you to read.'

  'It doesn't tell us anything,' Annie said.

  And in a way she was right. It didn't tell all that much. It didn't say why Marilyn wanted to leave this paradise and come to Dublin, and whether her husband would come too. It didn't speak of any friends or relations in Westville, nothing about a circle of people she knew, just an emergency list of locksmiths, plumbers, electricians and gardeners.

  Ria's list had been much more people-orientated. But nothing would please Annie anyway so this wasn't relevant. She was still shuffling the papers around on the kitchen table, her face discontented.

  'Has Dad fixed up the date of the Shannon trip?' Ria asked them.

  They looked at each other guiltily as if there was something to hide.

  'He says the boats are all booked,' Brian said.

  'Ah, surely not?'

  'That's what he says,' Annie said.

  'Well, there must have been great demand for them then,' Ria said, pretending not to notice the disbelief.

  'But he may be making it up,' Brian said.

  'No, Brian, of course he wouldn't make it up, he's dying for a trip on the Shannon.'

  'Yeah, but she wasn't,' Annie said.

  'We don't know that now.' Ria struggled to be fair.

  'We do actually, Mam.'

  'Did she tell you to your faces?'

  'No, we haven't met her yet,' Brian said.

  'Well then…'

  'We're meeting her today,' Annie said. 'After school.'

  'That's good,' Ria said emptily.

  'Why is it good?' Annie would fight with her shadow today.

  'It's good because if you're going to be spending July with her, then the sooner you meet Bernadette the better. So that you'll get to know her.'

  'I don't want to know her,' Annie said.

  'Neither do I.' Brian was in rare agreement with his sister.

  'Where are you all meeting?'

  'Her flat, well, their flat.' Annie said. 'For tea, apparently.' She made it sound like the most unusual and bizarre thing to offer in the afternoon.

  Part of Ria was pleased to see the resentment against the woman who had taken their father away. Yet another part of her knew that the only hope of peace ahead was if the children were co-operative. 'You know it would be nice if…' she began. She had been about to say that they should take a little potted plant or a small gift. It would break the ice and please Danny as well. But then she stopped herself. This was ridiculous. She would not make smooth the path of the meeting between her children and their father's pregnant mistress. Let Danny do it whatever way he wanted to.

  'What would be nice?' Annie sensed a change of heart.

  'If all this hadn't happened I suppose, but it has so we have to cope as best we can.' She was brisk.

  She sco
oped up the contents of Marilyn's envelope.

  'Are you putting those away?' Annie asked.

  'Yes, Brian's seen them, you're not coming with us so I'll just keep them with my things. Okay?'

  'What will I do while you're there?'

  'I don't know, Annie. Stay with Dad and Bernadette, I suppose. You'll work it out.' She knew it was unfair, but she just wasn't going to go down the road of pleading and begging.

  Annie would go to Westville when the time came, they all knew that.

  Bantry Court, the apartment block that Bernadette lived in, had been developed by Barney about five years ago. Danny had sold many of the flats. Perhaps this was how he had met Bernadette. Ria had never asked. There were so many questions she had not asked. Like what she looked like. What they talked about. What she cooked for him. If she held him and stroked his forehead when he woke with a nightmare and his heart racing.

  She had coped by pushing these things out of her mind. But today her daughter and son were going to this woman's apartment for tea. Somehow it was important that she had to see Bernadette first. Before Annie and Brian did.

  As soon as they left for school Ria got into her car and drove there. She noticed that it took fifteen minutes. On the many nights when he came home so late, Danny must have driven this route. Had he hated coming back to Tara Road all that time or was he happy to keep both lives going? If this girl had not become pregnant would it have just gone along like that for ever? Bantry Court, Tara Road, two different compartments of his life?

  She parked in the forecourt and looked up at the windows. Behind one of those sat Bernadette who was going to entertain Danny's children to tea this afternoon and get to know them, tell them about the new half-sister or brother that would be born. Would she call Danny darling or even sweetheart? Would she upset them by putting her hand on his arm?