Tara Road

by Maeve Binchy

  'No, of course not.'

  'So why do people whisper about them?'

  'They don't, believe me.'

  'They did, Mam, tonight. Believe me.'

  'I'm sure you misunderstood.'

  'I don't think so. Do you want to say goodnight to Finola? She's just off.' Ria could hear Annie scream.

  'Brian, you are so stupid,' she could hear Annie crying.

  'Yes, sure, I'd love to say goodnight to Finola,' Ria heard herself say.

  There was a fluster and then a woman came on the line. 'Well, I just want to say that your children are great company,' she said desperately.

  'Thank you for saying that. They seem to have taken to you greatly also,' Ria gulped. 'And I gather there was some kind of night to remember?'

  Finola considered. 'Unless there had been someone there with a video camera you would never believe it.'

  Neither used the other's name. Perhaps it was always going to be like that between them. 'Good luck to you,' Ria said.

  'And great good luck to you too,' said Bernadette's mother.

  Ria hung up the telephone. She had two hours to get ready for her date with a man who was in technical publishing in Los Angeles and was en route to a conference in Boston. She had just finished a pleasant conversation with the mother of her husband's mistress. The apparently manic-depressive woman with whom she had exchanged homes had been out partying in Colm's restaurant. The world had tilted.

  Andy Vine didn't look at all like his brother when he came in and had a lemon drink by the pool, so she was glad she had telephoned Hawaii about him. About her own age or younger, slight and red-haired. Somewhat academic and assuming that she knew much more about college life than she did. 'Forgive me, I keep making the wrong assumptions,' he said when she knew nothing of any faculty or alumni association in either Ireland or Connecticut. 'I thought that's how you and Marilyn met.'

  'No, not at all. Other people thought we met over an obsession about gardens, in which I have no interest at all.' She was all smiles and wearing her best summer outfit, a blue-and-white dress that she had got for a wedding last summer and had never worn since. It had looked great with a hat from Polly Callaghan, but there was never anywhere smart enough to wear it since. She should have dressed better. Would everything have been all right had she been an elegant wife?

  'Do you know Thai food at all?' he was asking.

  'Well, there are Thai restaurants in Ireland now, we are very international. But I've only been twice so I don't remember it all and I'd love you to choose for me when we get there.'

  This seemed to go down well. Maybe it was easier making fellows interested in you when you were old and way past it and it didn't matter any more.

  They talked easily in the Thai restaurant. He told her about the kind of publishing his company was involved in. Books that you would never hear of unless you happened to be in that field, and then you not only heard about them, you bought them because you had to. He explained how it had all changed so radically because of technology and CD-roms. His grandfather had been a door-to-door salesman for encyclopaedias. The man would spin in his grave if he saw the size of an encyclopaedia now and knew how they were sold. Andy lived in LA in an apartment. He had been married, and was now divorced. There were no children.

  'Did you leave her or did she leave you?' Ria asked.

  'It's never as simple as that,' he smiled.

  'Oh it is,' she insisted.

  'Okay, I had an affair, she found out and she threw me out.'

  Ria nodded. 'So you left really, by ending the marriage.'

  'So you say, so she said. I didn't want it to end but who listened to me?'

  'Would you have forgiven her, if she were the one who had the affair?'

  'Sure I would.'

  'You'd have gone on as if nothing had happened?'

  'Look, Maria, people let each other down all the time, don't they? It's not a perfect life with everyone delivering on every promise. Marriages survive affairs if there's something there in the marriage itself that's bigger than the affair. I thought there was in our case, I was wrong.'

  'If you had your time all over again… ?' She was keen to know.

  'You can't rewrite history, I have no idea what I'd do. Tell me, are you divorced also?'

  'I think so,' Ria said. He looked at her, startled. 'That's not as mad as it sounds. You see, divorce was only recently introduced in Ireland. We're still not entirely used to it. But the answer is yes, I am about to be.'

  'Did you leave him or…?'

  'Oh, he left me.'

  'And you won't forgive him?'

  'I'm not being given the chance.' There was a pause, 'Andy, can I ask you about Dale?'

  'What do you want to know exactly?'

  'It's just that when I talked to Greg, well, I think I may have somehow said the wrong thing. He seemed a bit startled, upset almost.'

  'What on earth did you say?'

  'I don't know, ordinary things, you know, good wishes, and so on.'

  Andy shook his head. 'Well, of course people are not all the same the way they respond. Everyone takes things differently. Marilyn's never really accepted it, that's the way she copes.'

  'Can't she and Greg talk about it?'

  'Greg wants to but she won't apparently.'

  Ria felt stung by the way men shrugged things off. Dale was in Hawaii, his mother clearly missed him and yet things were stuck in this impasse. She and Danny hadn't made a brilliant job of sorting their children out, but they had tried. Both of them, she gave Danny that much. This matter of Dale was very baffling. 'Surely all Greg has to do is to work it out with her, dates and times of visits.'

  'He was trying to and then she disappeared to Ireland.'

  'But when does she think he will come back?'

  'In the fall.'

  'That's a long time and she still leaves that room like that?' Ria was puzzled.

  'What did she tell you about it all?' Andy asked.

  'Nothing at all. She never mentioned she had a son at all.'

  Andy looked upset and a little silence fell between them. And then they didn't speak about the matter again. There were plenty of other things to talk about. He told her about his childhood in Pennsylvania, she told him about her mother's obsession with the movies, he explained the passion for baseball and she told him about hurling and the big final every year in Croke Park. He told her how to make a great Caesar salad and she explained about potato cakes. She enjoyed the evening and knew he had too.

  He drove her back to Tudor Drive and they sat awkwardly for a few moments in the car. She did not like to invite him in in case it would be misunderstood. Then they both spoke at once.

  'If ever business takes you to Ireland…' Ria began.

  'The conference ends on Wednesday at lunchtime…' Andy said.

  'Please go on…' she said.

  So he finished what he was going to say. 'And I was wondering if I drove back this way and made you a Caesar salad would you cook those potato cakes?'

  'It's a deal,' Ria said with a big smile and got out of the car.

  Years ago when they went out with fellows the big question always asked was 'Are you seeing him again?' And now she was back in that situation, a fellow had asked to see her again. With all that implied.

  Ria stood in her bedroom and looked out on the beautiful garden that this strange woman had created. From what she had heard, Marilyn Vine spent every waking moment with her hands in the earth pulling and changing and turning the soil and coaxing the flowers and climbers to come up out of the ground.

  She felt very out of place here. The friendship that she had thought she might have with Carlotta and Heidi had not bloomed. Both women seemed embarrassed at the effusion of the first night, and had made no attempt to arrange another jolly threesome. Despite the admiration in Andy Vine's eyes she felt no real sense of being pleased and flattered. He was just a strange man from a different world to hers. True, Westville was peaceful and beautiful,
a place of trees and a river and a gracious easygoing lifestyle with superficial courtesy and warmth everywhere. But it wasn't home. And at home her children had gone out to Colm's restaurant for a hilarious evening with their new family. And Marilyn Vine had been across the room at a table with Rosemary. And I was here alone. Tears came down her face. She must have been mad to think this was a good idea. Totally mad.

  It was dawn in Tara Road. Marilyn had not slept well. What an ugly scene that had been at the restaurant. Everything had suddenly slipped out of control. All these people were like characters playing their parts in a drama. And not a very pleasant drama. Rosemary and Gertie had filled her in on some of the background. Stories of Ria's broken marriage, the new relationship, the puzzlement of the children, the known unreliability of that offensive drunken singer, the possible criminal connection of the heavy men who had eventually taken her away. These people knew everything about everyone and were not slow in discussing it. There was no dignity, reserve, self-preservation.

  Rosemary had talked about it being natural that people might assume she was gay since she was single and had a sister who was already 'out' with a partner who was a lawyer. Gertie had told her about her husband's problems coping with drink and violence. She spoke as if Jack had been prone to getting chest colds in the winter. Colm had approached their table with a casual apology over the incident as if it had not been the most excruciatingly embarrassing moment of her life. The two women had told her how they had initially thought Ria was mad to go to America and leave her children but they hoped it would all work out for the best.

  Marilyn could not take in the degree of involvement and indeed interference that these people felt confident to have in everyone else's life. They thought nothing of discussing the motives and private sorrows of their friend with Marilyn who was after all a complete stranger, here purely because of an accidental home exchange. While she felt sympathy for Ria and all that had happened to her, she also felt a sense of annoyance.

  Why had she not kept her dignity, and refused to allow all these people into her life? The only way to cope with tragedy and grief was to refuse to permit it to be articulated and acknowledged. Deny its existence and you had some hope of survival. Marilyn got out of bed and looked down on the messy garden and the other large redbrick houses of the neighbourhood. She felt very lost and alone in this place where garrulous people wanted to know everything about you and expected you to need the details of their lives too.

  She ached for the cool house and beautiful garden in Westville. If she were there now she could go and swim lengths of her pool safe in the knowledge that no one would call and burden her with post mortems about last night. Clement the cat who slept on her bed every night woke up and stretched and came over to her hopefully. He was purring loudly. The day was about to begin, he was expecting a game and a bowl of something.

  Marilyn looked at him sadly. 'I don't usually talk to animals, Clement, but I'm making an exception in your case. I made the wrong decision coming here. It was the worst decision I ever made in my life.'

  CHAPTER SIX

  'Do you think when we're talking to Granny we should call her Nora?' Brian asked.

  'What?' Annie looked up from her book.

  'You know… if we call Bernadette's mother by her first name maybe we should do the same with Granny.' Brian wanted to be fair.

  'No, Brian, and shut up,' said Annie.

  'You always say shut up, you never say anything nice, not ever at all.'

  'Who could say anything nice to you, Brian, honestly?'

  'Well, some people do.'

  'Who apart from Mam and Dad? And they have to because you're what they got.'

  'Finola often says nice things.'

  'Tell me one nice thing she said to you today, go on tell me.'

  'She said it was good that I had remembered to let my knights command the centre of the board.'

  'And had you?' Annie still refused chess lessons and she couldn't accept that Brian had mastered it.

  'Well, only by accident in a way. I just sort of put them out there and they were commanding and she was very pleased with me.' Brian smiled at the triumph of it all.

  Sometimes he was more pathetic than awful, Annie thought, you'd feel sorry for him. And he didn't really understand that their lives were going to change. He thought that after the summer everyone would go back to their own homes. He had even asked Bernadette's mother if they could go on playing chess in the autumn when they came back from America. Their games wouldn't have to end then, would they? Finola had said that they could surely continue to play whenever he came to visit his dad and she happened to be around. Stupid Brian had just looked bewildered. In his heart he thought that Dad might be coming home. He hadn't taken on board that this was the way things were always going to be.

  Kitty had said that Bernadette must be very, very clever to have got her claws into Annie's father. Despite the ban Annie still managed to see Kitty by dint of visiting the library. Since Annie read a lot now, from sheer lack of anything else to do as she kept telling them, it was considered legitimate that she visit the library. Kitty would come along too and report on the real world of motorbike rallies, of discos and of great crowds who hung out in bars. Annie listened wistfully to the freedom of it all.

  But Kitty was more interested in the sexual side of it all, and was fascinated by Bernadette. 'She looks so dumb and half asleep you'd never have thought it. She must be like one of these sirens, one of these famous courtesans who had captured people by wiles. There were women who could make men their sexual slaves. It would be interesting to know exactly how.'

  'She's hardly likely to tell me,' Annie said drily.

  'But you all get on so well,' Kitty said, amazed. 'I thought you'd hate her taking your mother's place and everything.'

  'No, she hasn't taken Mam's place, she's just made a new place. It's hard to explain.'

  'And she lets you do what you want, that's good anyway.'

  'No, I said she doesn't bother us, that's a different thing. She doesn't make any rules except about you. She's obviously got a heavy message from Dad that you're a no-go area,' Annie grinned.

  Kitty was puzzled. 'I always thought he liked me, I even thought he fancied me a bit, that I was in there with a chance. Your mother was on to me—that's why she didn't want me round the place.'

  Annie was shocked. 'Kitty, you wouldn't have.'

  'I wouldn't have wanted to be your stepmother. I thought a bit of clubbing, going to fancy places…' Kitty wiggled her hips. 'A bit of you know… he's a good-looking man, your dad.'

  Annie looked at her with a sick feeling. Kitty had had sex with fellows, and she said it was usually great. Sometimes it was boring but mainly it was great. Annie shouldn't knock it until she'd tried it. But Annie knew she was never going to try it, it was frightening and urgent and out of control and horrible. Like what she had seen in the lane that day. And like Orla King, the woman who sang and made all the trouble in Colm's, she had been singing and talking about sex. It was a horrible, upsetting, confusing business. She remembered her mother explaining it all to her years back and saying that it was very good because it made you feel specially close and warm when you loved someone.

  Some good it had done poor Mam feeling close and warm. And it wasn't as if at her age she was ever going to feel close and warm to anyone again, like Dad had done. So easily.

  Ria decided to have her hair done for her date with Andy on Wednesday night. But she would not go to Carlotta's. She would not let these women think that she was clingy and dependent even if it were true.

  There were other beauty salons in Westville or near by. In fact she remembered seeing one in a shopping mall that she had driven to not long ago. She would go and investigate. Expertly she backed Marilyn Vine's car out of the carport and by chance met Carlotta who was collecting her mail.

  The greeting was warm. 'Hi! Now isn't this a bit of luck, I was hoping to see you.'

  'Here I am,' Ria s
aid with a smile fixed to her face.

  What did the woman mean, she was hoping to see her? She lived next door for heaven's sake. 'Yes, well, I didn't want to keep coming on top of you. I know Marilyn values her privacy…'

  'Marilyn is Marilyn,' Ria said tartly. 'I'm Ria.' She felt it was a childish, petulant outburst, something Brian would have said a few years ago. She must be getting unhinged.

  If Carlotta was startled she managed to hide it. 'Sure, well what I was going to say was that Tuesday evening we have a hair product company coming to the salon, you know? They want us to buy their line so, as an encouragement, they offer four or five of our regular customers a Special, shampoo, treatment, conditioner, the works… then if we all like what we see we buy into their range. It happens with various companies a couple of times a year. I wondered would you like to take part? It's not being a guinea-pig or anything, they won't turn your hair purple!'

  Ria was astounded. 'But you must have more regular clients.'

  'Do come,' Carlotta pleaded.

  'Well of course, what time?' It was all arranged. Ria wished she could feel more pleased.

  Carlotta was obviously not being cold and distant as she had thought, and it would be good to meet some neighbours. But her heart wasn't in it. Her feelings from Saturday night were still with her. This was a strange place, not her home. It was foolish to build up hopes that she would fit in and get to know everyone.

  She had been meaning to ring Marilyn in Ireland but couldn't think of anything to say. Still, she shrugged to herself, it was something. And as Hilary would say, it was a free hairdo.

  Marilyn braced herself for endless discussions about the scenes in the restaurant when Gertie next arrived. But the woman looked frail and anxious, and wasn't at all eager to speak. Possibly Jack had not appreciated the girls' night out and had showed it in the way he knew best. Gertie for once seemed relieved to be left alone to iron and kneel down and polish the legs of the beautiful table in the front room.

  Marilyn worked on in the front garden. She always left Gertie's money in an envelope on the hall table with a card saying thank you. Colm worked in the back garden; there was no communication there either. Rosemary had driven by but hadn't felt it necessary to call. Ria's mother and the insane dog hadn't been in for two days.