Tara Road

by Maeve Binchy

  Ria's mother was exactly the right person to have alerted. She knew precisely what to do. She encouraged the launderette staff to continue working. It's what Gertie would want if she were able to speak, Nora Johnson said. No, it wasn't at all heartless to keep the business going, in fact it was only fair to customers. But if the staff would all like to give her fifty pence each she would go out now and buy a big bunch of flowers and a card so that they could be seen to be the very first to sympathise. They rooted in their apron pockets and Nora came back with a bouquet, which had cost three times what she had collected.

  'What exactly would you write in a case like this?' one of the girls asked.

  'Suppose you say: "For Gertie with love and sympathy", would that cover it?' Nora Johnson knew that none of them, any more than herself, could bear to mention the name Jack on a card. Only a couple of hours ago she had shouted at him herself and said that she had always urged Gertie to leave him. Nora didn't regret it at all, it was what she had always felt. Not of course that there would be any need to say anything like that now to Gertie.

  Marilyn watched in amazement as the little flat above the launderette filled with people. A buffet table was set up with cold ham and pate which came from Colm's restaurant. Jimmy and Frances Sullivan had sent a crate of wine, and bottles of soda. Hilary had sent a message saying she'd come over after work and bring a bag of black clothes which Gertie could borrow. The children John and Katy had arrived, stunned, confused and taken from the summer course where their grandmother had paid for them to have some kind of normal holiday. Gertie's mother was there, her mouth a thin hard line, but her words kind as she went along with the general fiction that Gertie had tragically lost a great man, a loving husband and devoted father.

  It was entirely surreal, but Marilyn told herself over and over that this is what Gertie ached to hear and it was being delivered to her.

  Ria was having coffee with Sheila Maine when the call came from Sheila and Gertie's mother with the news of Jack's death. She said it was hard to speak because there were so many people there. Ria realised that it was also hard to speak since she too had been sworn to support the story of the fairy-tale marriage.

  Sheila was appalled. 'What on earth will she do without him, she'll be devastated,' she cried. 'I mean, other people think they have happy marriages but this is one we all dreamed about and never knew.'

  Polly left a message in Rosemary Ryan's office. They told her that Rosemary was on another line and couldn't be interrupted. 'Just tell her that Gertie Brennan's husband is dead.' 'Any more details, Ms Callaghan?' Rosemary Ryan's assistant was as cool as she was herself.

  'No, she'll know what to do,' said Polly.

  'Danny, I have to talk to you.' Rosemary had phoned Danny Lynch's mobile.

  'It's not appropriate now, Rosemary.' He was sitting holding Bernadette's hand, as she drifted off to sleep.

  'Go on, Danny, take the call if it's business,' Bernadette said.

  He took his phone into the next room.

  'What is it, Rosemary?'

  'You haven't got in touch since you got back.'

  'Well, quite a lot has been happening,' he said.

  'I know, and didn't I alert you out there?'

  'Not about work. We lost the baby.'

  'Oh.'

  'Is that all you can say?'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'Thank you.'

  'But life goes on, Danny, and you and I have a lot of worries which you should know about. Can you meet me?'

  'Absolutely not.'

  'We have to talk.'

  'No, we don't.'

  'Is your business safe, your house?'

  'The business has closed, the house will have to be sold, but at least not as part of Barney's estate. Now I have to go back to…'

  'But you, Danny, what will you do? You must tell me. I have a right to know.'

  'You have no right to know. You couldn't help me when I was in trouble. You made that clear, and I accepted it.'

  'But there's more… wait… Marilyn knows.'

  'Knows what?'

  'She knows about us.'

  'Really?'

  'Don't go all distant on me, Danny Lynch.'

  'Please, Rosemary, leave me alone, I have too much to about.'

  'I don't believe this,' she said.

  'Rosemary, stop the drama. It's over.'

  She hung up, shaking.

  Her assistant came in. 'Ms Ryan, I have a message here. Some bad news. It's to tell you that Gertie Brennan's husband is dead.'

  'Good,' said Rosemary.

  'We're going home two days early,' Ria said. 'I was able to get cancellations.'

  'Oh no Mam, no. Not for awful Jack Brennan's funeral. You never liked him, it's so hypocritical.'

  'Gertie's my friend though, I like her,' Ria said.

  'You promised we could stay here until September.'

  'Well, I'd have thought you would like to be going on the same plane as Sean Maine, but what do I know?' Ria said.

  'What?'

  'Sheila's taking the two children over to the funeral, we'll all travel together… but of course if you're violently opposed to that then I suppose…'

  'Oh Mam, shut up, you'd never win a prize for acting,' Annie said, overjoyed.

  Andy had a business meeting near by. Or so he said. 'Can I take your mother out to the Thai restaurant on her own?' he asked Annie and Brian when he came to the house.

  'On a date like?' Brian asked.

  'No, just for boring grown-up conversation.'

  'Oh, sure, I'll go to Zach's house. Will it be overnight?' Brian asked.

  'No, Brian, it will not be overnight,' Ria said.

  'I can go to the movies with Hubie,' Annie said. 'And before you ask, Brian, that's not a date and neither is it overnight.'

  'You have a delightful family,' Andy said.

  Ria sighed. 'I must remind myself not to cling to them too much, not to be the mother from hell.'

  'You couldn't be that,' he laughed.

  'Oh easily. I don't know what we're going back to; it's real uncharted territory. I must not use them as my pair of crutches through it.'

  'You don't need any crutches, Maria,' he said. 'Will you keep in touch with me, do you think?'

  'I'd love to.'

  'But just as a friend… that's all, isn't it?' He was disappointed but realistic.

  'I need friends, Andy, I'd love to think you were one.'

  'That's what it will be then. And I'll send you recipes, I'll actively seek them out for you to make you a legend in Irish cuisine.'

  'You know, I really do think it might get off the ground. My friend Rosemary is putting herself right behind it and she's a real dynamo.'

  'I don't doubt it for one minute,' said Andy Vine.

  'I didn't have sex with Sean Maine and I'm not going to have sex with you either, Hubie. Are we clear on both these matters?' Annie said.

  'You're making the point very forcibly, yes,' he said. 'But the thing that really bugs me is that one day soon you are going to have sex with somebody and it won't be me because you're going to be miles away.'

  'I might not, you know.' Annie spoke very seriously. 'I don't mean become a nun or anything but I might just not do it, ever.'

  'Unlikely.' Hubie dismissed the notion.

  'I once saw two people doing it… years and years ago. I don't know how to describe it… it wasn't nice. It wasn't the way I thought it would be.'

  'But you were very young then,' he said. She nodded. 'And you probably didn't understand it.'

  'Do you understand it?' she asked him.

  'A bit, I suppose, well better than when I was a kid. Then it seemed full of mystery and excitement and you had to have it and yet you were afraid of it.' He smiled at the recollection of how silly he had been when young.

  'And now?'

  'Well, now it seems more natural, do you know? Like the thing to do with someone you like.'

  'Oh?' She wasn't convinced.


  'I haven't done it all that often, Annie, believe me. I'm not bullshitting you.'

  'But it was nice?'

  'It was, and that's the truth,' said Hubie Green who knew they were having a conversation about abstracts and not about how the evening was going to end.

  'Will you be living in a trailer park when you get back?' Zach asked.

  'No, I don't think so, why?' Brian was interested.

  'Well, if your house is gone?'

  'I don't know where we'll live, maybe with Dad but I think his house is gone too.'

  'It's a real adventure, isn't it?' Zach said. 'Will there be somewhere for me to stay when I come over there next year?'

  'Oh, there'll have to be,' Brian said airily. *"

  'And will I meet Myles and Dekko?'

  'Certainly.'

  'That's great,' Zach said. 'I never thought I'd be a person who would travel.'

  'That's funny,' Brian said. 'I always knew I'd travel, I'll probably go to planets and all. I was going to be an auctioneer like my dad and work with him but now that he's lost his business I think I'll be an astronaut instead.'

  'I’ll miss you,' Carlotta said. 'I wish I'd got to know you better. Earlier on I suppose I felt inhibited. Marilyn has kept us all at such arm's length, we thought that as her friend…'

  'I think you'll find that she has changed a lot in a couple of months. She talks about Dale now, and Greg's coming back here to live. Things will be much more open now.'

  'Does she know Hubie visits here?'

  'Yes, I told her. She has no objection, though I don't think he'll be around so much when my Annie leaves!'

  'And did you find what you came here for, Ria?' Carlotta asked.

  'No, but I was looking for the moon,' she said.

  'I kinda thought you had found the moon that weekend when your husband was here,' Carlotta said.

  'Yes, so did I for a little while, but it wasn't the moon after all,' Ria said.

  'Greg has told us how wonderful your home in Ireland is, I'm so sorry you won't be able to go on living there,' Heidi said.

  'It's only a house, Heidi, only bricks and mortar,' Ria said.

  'That's such a very wise thing to be able to say.' Heidi was admiring.

  'I'm just practising, rehearsing my lines,' Ria admitted. 'I think that if I say it often enough then I might believe it when I walk around it and have to say goodbye to it.'

  'And do you know where you'll go?'

  'House property is very expensive in Dublin at the moment, so we'll get a good price for it but then we won't be able to buy anything in the area. I imagine that we'll have to move out a long way.'

  'It does seem such a waste. He and you got along so well when he was here… but then I'm only saying things you must have thought a thousand times in your head.'

  'A million times, Heidi.'

  John and Gerry said they really would miss her in their shop. Ria was to go home, set up a food export business, get written up in Bon Appetit, and they would be amongst her first clients.

  'That's what I love about America. You really do believe dreams come true here,' Ria said to them.

  She telephoned Gertie just before they left.

  'I can't believe you're coming home early for Jack's funeral, you changed your tickets and all to be here.'

  'Well of course I would, Gertie. You'd do it for me if things were different.'

  'Thank you, Ria, and you do know that Jack was always very admiring of you. Remember the party in your house that he came to where he drank lemonade and helped serve the food?'

  'I do indeed, Gertie.' Ria bit her lip.

  'They're taking him to the church tonight,' Gertie said. 'You wouldn't believe all the lovely flowers. Jack was very popular and well-liked in his own way.'

  'Of course he was, and we'll see you tomorrow morning,' said Ria, who would be hard put to it to find one person who could say one good word about the late Jack Brennan.

  Sheila Maine slept in the plane. Kelly and Brian played cards and watched the movie. Annie and Sean whispered plans for the future to each other.

  Ria could not sleep. Her mind was full of pictures. The funeral, and the sustained pretence that Jack Brennan had been very different. The meeting with Danny to discuss their future. Arranging to sell Number 16 Tara Road. Finding a new place to live. The whole business of starting to cook for a living. Meeting Marilyn face to face after all this time.

  Ria hoped she would like her. She knew so much about her now, more than Marilyn even dreamed she knew. There was a time when Ria had thought she would hate her, when she heard of Marilyn taking over her garden, her house, her friends and her daughter. That was when she had thought Marilyn cold and unfeeling, wearing a prickly armour about her son's death and shutting out so much goodwill everywhere.

  But the summer had changed that. Now she was touched by little secrets she knew about this woman. How she had a bottle of hair colourant labelled in her own writing 'Special Shampoo'. How she had inexpensive discount toilet tissue in her storeroom, and instant cake mixes in her larder. Ria knew that Marilyn's friends had been hurt and repelled by her, and that her love of the garden was not considered admirable but obsessive.

  And Ria also knew a far bigger secret. Something that would never be told. She knew what had happened on the day of Dale Vine's accident. To know that would never make Marilyn stronger, it would ruin everything. She had reassured Hubie that it would never be mentioned and he believed her.

  Ria hadn't told everyone else that she was coming home. She would meet them all at the funeral anyway.

  Marilyn had promised to have breakfast ready for them when they arrived at Tara Road. They would have time for that, to get changed, and then they would all go to the church together. Ria smiled as she remembered their conversation. 'The one good thing about this dreadful accident is that you and I get a chance to meet. Otherwise we would have passed in mid-air again,' she had said to Marilyn.

  'I think there's a lot more than one good thing about this dreadful accident,' Marilyn had said. 'Not of course that any of us will ever admit it.' Marilyn had been in Ireland for two months. She was learning.

  Just then the captain announced that due to weather conditions they were being diverted to Shannon Airport. He apologised for the delay which would not be more than a couple of hours. They would certainly be in Dublin by 11.00 a.m. 'My God,' said Ria. 'We'll miss the funeral.'

  'I'm going to that eejit Jack Brennan's funeral,' Danny Lynch said.

  Bernadette looked up. 'Who was he?'

  'A drunken bully. His wife Gertie was always in and out of Tara Road. If Ria and the children were here they'd have gone; I suppose in a way I'm going to represent them.'

  'That's very good of you,' said Bernadette. 'You're always thinking of other people.'

  'I met Lady Ryan on the road,' Nora Johnson told Hilary. 'She said she was going to Jack's funeral.'

  'Well, I suppose like the rest of us she's only going as a bit of solidarity for poor Gertie.'

  'She never had the civility to throw the time of day to poor Gertie,' Nora sniffed.

  'Ah, be fair, Mam, didn't we all say that Gertie should have thrown him out years ago?'

  'We did and we were right, but we didn't say it with the scorn that Lady Ryan did. She treated Gertie like dirt, like something she found stuck to her shoe.'

  'You never liked her, Mam.'

  'Do you?'

  'She's all right, she's funny I suppose and she jazzes us all up,' Hilary admitted grudgingly.

  'No she doesn't, she pats you all on the head, and you're all worth ten of her.' Some of Nora's opinions would never change.

  The delay at Shannon Airport seemed interminable. Sheila Maine telephoned her sister. 'If we're not in time for the church, we'll go straight to the graveyard,' she said.

  Gertie wept her gratitude on the phone. 'Oh Sheila, if you knew how kind everyone's being. And if only poor Jack knew how much it turned out that people loved him.'

 
; 'Well, of course he did. Didn't everyone know you had a great marriage?' Sheila said.

  Ria rang Marilyn. 'It seems we won't have that breakfast after all,' she said.

  'Then you'll never know what a bad cook I am,' Marilyn said.

  'I wish you didn't have to leave tomorrow, that you could spend a couple more days.'

  'I might easily do that. We'll talk later… Oh and another thing… Welcome home!'

  'Jimmy, would you sing "Panis Angelicus" at the funeral?' Gertie had asked on the phone.

  'Now you wouldn't want me croaking away …’ he began.

  'Oh Jimmy, please. Jack just loved that hymn, he really did. It would make it lovely for me if you sang it.'

  'I think it's more a wedding hymn really, Gertie, rather than a funeral one.'

  'No, it's about Holy Communion so it would be equally suitable at both.'

  'Well, if you'd like me to then certainly I will,' said Jimmy Sullivan. He put the phone down and raised his eyes to heaven. 'If there is a God, which I gravely doubt, then he should smite us all to the pit of hell for our hypocrisy.'

  'What else can we do?' Frances shrugged.

  'We could have the balls to say that Jack was a mad bollocks and that the world is better off without him,' Jimmy suggested.

  'That would be great consolation to the widow and children,' Frances said.

  There was a black-edged notice on the door of the launderette saying that Jack Brennan, proprietor, had died and giving the time of the funeral Mass, so quite a few of the customers came out of respect to Gertie.

  The church was crowded when Gertie, her mother and her children arrived. Some of Jack's family, long-estranged, had turned up, with dark suits and white shirts and awkward handshakes. Gertie, pale and wearing the black dress she had borrowed from Hilary, walked up the aisle looking proudly from side to side at all the people who had come to say goodbye to Jack. At least now he might know that he had worth in people's eyes. Surely he was somewhere where he could see all this.