Circle of Friends

by Maeve Binchy

  “No! Heavens no!” Benny was far too vehement.

  Eve looked at her with a measured glance. “Right,” she said. “See you this afternoon.”

  They went to school on Saturday mornings, and at twelve-thirty when the bell went they all poured out of the school gates. All except Eve, who went to the convent kitchen.

  “We’ll have to feed you up with a good meal before you go,” said Sister Margaret.

  “We wouldn’t want them to think that a girl from St. Mary’s would eat all before her when she went out to tea,” said Sister Jerome. They didn’t want to spell it out too much for Eve, but it was a big event, the child they had brought up being invited out to a party. The whole community was delighted for her.

  As Benny had walked down the town, Mr. Kennedy called her into the chemist’s.

  “A little bird told me it was your birthday,” he said.

  “I’m ten,” Benny said.

  “I know. I remember when you were born. It was in the Emergency. Your Mam and Dad were so pleased. They didn’t mind at all that you weren’t a boy.”

  “Did they want a boy do you think?”

  “Everyone with a business wants a boy. But I don’t know, I’ve three of them, and I don’t think one of them will ever run this place for me.” He sighed heavily.

  “Well, I suppose I’d better be …”

  “No, no. I brought you in to give you a present. Here’s a pack of barley sugar all for you.”

  “Oh, Mr. Kennedy …” Benny was overwhelmed.

  “Not at all. You’re a grand girl. I always say to myself, there’s that little barrel Benny Hogan coming along.”

  A bit of the sunlight went out of the barley sugar. Moodily Benny tore the corner off the packet and began to eat a sweet.

  Dessie Burns, whose hardware shop was next door to Kennedy’s, gave her a shout of approval.

  “That’s it, Benny, like myself, always head in the nosebag. How are you in yourself these days?”

  “I’m ten today, Mr. Burns.”

  “Jaysus isn’t that great, if you were six years older I’d take you into Shea’s and put you up on my knee and buy you a gin and It.”

  “Thank you Mr. Burns.” She looked at him fearfully.

  “What’s your father doing over there? Don’t tell me he’s after hiring new staff. Half the country taking the emigrant ship and Eddie Hogan decides to expand.”

  Dessie Burns had small piggy eyes. He looked across the street toward Hogan’s Gentleman’s Outfitters with huge unconcealed interest. Her father was shaking hands with a man—or a boy, it was hard to see. He looked about seventeen, Benny thought, thin and pale. He had a suitcase in his hand. He was looking up at the sign over the door.

  “I don’t know anything about it, Mr. Burns,” she said.

  “Good girl, keep your mind out of business, let me tell you it’s a heart scald. If I were a woman I wouldn’t have the slightest interest in it either. I’d just get myself a fine eejit of a man to keep me in barley sugar all day.”

  Benny went on down the street, past the empty shop which people said that a real Italian from Italy was going to open up. She passed the cobbler’s shop where Paccy Moore and his sister Bee waved out to her. Paccy had a twisted leg. He didn’t go to mass, but it was said that the priests came down to him once a month and heard his confession and gave him Holy Communion. Benny had heard that they had sent to Dublin and maybe even Rome for him to have a dispensation, and it wasn’t a question of his being a sinner or outside the Church or anything. And then she was home to Lisbeg. The new dog, which was half collie, half sheepdog, sat sleepily on the step loving the September sunshine.

  Through the window she could see the table set for the party. Patsy had cleaned the brasses specially, and Mother had tidied up the front garden. Benny swallowed the barley sugar rather than be accused of eating sweets in the public view, and let herself in the back.

  “Not a word out of that dog to let you know I was coming,” her mother said crossly.

  “He shouldn’t bark at you, you’re family,” Benny defended him.

  “The day Shep barks for anything except his own amusement there’ll be white blackbirds. Tell me did you have a nice day at school, did they make a fuss of you?”

  “They did, Mother.”

  “That’s good. Well they won’t know you when they see you this afternoon.”

  Benny’s heart soared. “Will I be getting dressed, like in anything new, before the party?”

  “I think so. I think we’ll have you looking like the bees knees before they come in.”

  “Will I put it on now?”

  “Why not.” Benny’s mother seemed excited about seeing the new outfit herself. “I’ll lay it out for you on the bed. Come up and give yourself a bit of a wash and we’ll put it on.”

  Benny stood patiently in the big bathroom while the back of her neck was washed. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Then she was led into her bedroom.

  “Close your eyes,” said Mother.

  When Benny opened them she saw on the bed a thick navy skirt, a Fair Isle jumper in navy and red. A big sturdy pair of navy shoes lay in their box and chunky white socks folded nice and neatly beside them. Peeping out of tissue paper was a small red shoulder bag.

  “It’s an entire outfit,” cried Mother. “Dressed from head to foot by Peggy Pine …”

  Mother stood back to see the effect of the gift.

  Benny was wordless. No velvet dress, no lovely soft crushed velvet that you could stroke, with its beautiful lacy trim. Only horrible harsh rough things like horsehair. Nothing in a misty pink, but instead good plain sensible colors. And the shoes! Where were the pumps with the pointed toes?

  Benny bit her lip and willed the tears back into her eyes.

  “Well, what do you think?” Her mother was beaming proudly. “Your father said you must have the handbag and the shoes as well, it would make it a real outfit. He said that going into double figures must be marked.”

  “It’s lovely,” Benny muttered.

  “Isn’t the jumper perfect? I’d been asking Peggy to get something like that for ages. I said I didn’t want anything shoddy … something strong that would stand up to a bit of rough-and-tumble.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Benny said.

  “Feel it,” her mother urged.

  She didn’t want to. Not while she still had the velvet feel in her mind.

  “I’ll put it on myself, Mother, then I’ll come and show you,” she said.

  She was holding on by a thread.

  Fortunately, Annabel Hogan needed to go and supervise the shaking of hundreds-and-thousands on the trifle. She was just heading off downstairs when the telephone rang. “That’ll be your father.” She sounded pleased and her step was quicker on the stair.

  Through her sobs, which she choked into the pillow, Benny heard snatches of the conversation.

  “She loved it, Eddie, you know I think it was almost too much for her, she couldn’t seem to take it all in, so many things, a bag and shoes, and socks, on top of everything. A child of that age isn’t used to getting all that much at once. No, not yet, she’s putting it on. It’ll look fine on her …”

  Slowly Benny got off her bed and went over to the mirror on the wardrobe to see if her face looked as red and tearstained as she feared. She saw the chunky figure of a child in vest and knickers, neck red from scrubbing, eyes red from weeping. She was not a person that anyone would ever dream of putting in a pink velvet dress and little pumps with pointed toes. For no reason at all she remembered Eve Malone. She remembered her small earnest face warning her not to think about the dress from Dublin too much.

  Perhaps Eve knew all the time, maybe she had been in the shop when Mother was buying all this … all this horrible stuff. How awful that Eve knew before she did. And yet Eve had never had anything new, she knew that whatever dress she got for today would be a reject. She remembered the way Eve had said “They got you something new anywa
y.” She would never let them guess how disappointed she was. Never.

  The rest of the day wasn’t very clear to Benny because of the heavy cloud of disappointment that seemed to hang over the whole proceedings. For her anyway. She remembered making the right sounds and moving like a puppet as the party began. Maire Carroll arrived wearing a proper party dress. It had an underskirt that rustled. It had come from America in a parcel.

  There were games with a prize for everyone. Benny’s mother had bought cones of sweets in Birdie Mac’s shop, each one wrapped in different colored paper. They were all getting noisy but the cake had to be delayed until Mr. Hogan returned from the shop.

  They heard the Angelus ringing. The deep sound of the bells rolled through Knockglen twice a day, at noon and at six in the evening, great timekeepers as much as reminders to pray. But there was no sign of Benny’s father.

  “I hope he wasn’t delayed ramishing on with some customer today of all days,” Benny heard her mother say to Patsy.

  “Not at all Mam. He must be on his way. Shep got up and gave himself a good stretch. It’s always a sign that the master is heading home to us.”

  And indeed he was. Half a minute later Benny’s father came in full of anxiety.

  “I haven’t missed it, we’re not too late.”

  He was patted down and given a cup of tea and a sausage roll to bolster him up while the children were gathered and the room darkened in anticipation.

  Benny tried not to feel the rough wool of the jumper at her neck. She tried to smile a real smile at her father, who had run down the town to be here for the big moment.

  “Do you like your outfit … your first entire outfit?” he called over to her.

  “It’s lovely, Father, lovely. Do you see I’m wearing it all.”

  The other children in Knockglen used to giggle at Benny for saying “Father.” They used to call their fathers Daddy or Da. But by now they were used to it. It was part of the way things were. Benny was the only one they knew without brothers and sisters, most of them had to share a mam and a dad with five or six others. An only child was a rare occurrence. In fact they didn’t know any, except for Benny. And Eve Malone of course. But that was different. She had no family at all.

  Eve was standing near Benny as the cake came in.

  “Imagine that’s all for you,” she whispered in awe.

  Eve wore a dress that was several sizes too big for her. Sister Imelda, the only nun in the convent who was good with the needle, had been in her sickbed so a very poor job had been done on taking up the hem. The rest of it hung around her like a curtain.

  The only thing in its favor was that it was red and obviously new. There was no way that it could be admired or praised, but Eve Malone seemed to have risen above this. Something about the way she stood in the large unwieldy garment gave Benny courage. At least her horrible outfit fitted her, and though it was far from being a party dress, let alone the dress of her dreams, it was reasonable, unlike Eve’s. She put her shoulders back and smiled suddenly at the smaller girl.

  “I’ll give you some of the cake to take back if there’s any left over,” she said.

  “Thanks. Mother Francis loves a slice of cake,” Eve said.

  Then it was there, the blurry light of the candles and the singing happy birthday and the big whoosh … and the clapping and when the curtains were open again Benny saw the thin young man that her father had been shaking hands with. He was far too old for the party. They must have brought him back to tea with the grown-ups who would come later. He was very thin and pale, and he had a cold hard stare in his eyes.

  “Who was he?” Eve asked Benny on Monday.

  “He’s the new assistant come to work with my father in the shop.”

  “He’s awful isn’t he?”

  They were friends now, sitting on a school-yard wall together at break.

  “Yes, he is. There’s something wrong with his eyes I think.”

  “What’s his name?” Eve asked.

  “Sean. Sean Walsh. He’s going to live in the shop.”

  “Ugh!” said Eve. “Will he go to your house for meals?”

  “No, that’s the great thing. He won’t. Mother asked him to come to Sunday lunch and he made some awful speech about not assuming, or something.”

  “Presuming.”

  “Yes, well whatever it is he’s not going to do it and it seems to mean coming to meals. He’ll fend for himself he said.”

  “Good.” Eve approved of that.

  Benny spoke hesitantly.

  “Mother said …”

  “Yes?”

  “If you’d like to come anytime … that would be … it would be all right.”

  Benny spoke gruffly as if fearing the invitation would be spurned.

  “Oh, I’d like that,” Eve said.

  “Like to tea on an ordinary day, or maybe midday dinner on a Saturday or Sunday.”

  “I’d love Sunday. It’s a bit quiet here on Sundays, a lot of praying you see.”

  “Right, I’ll tell her.” Benny’s brow had cleared.

  “Oh, there is one thing though …”

  “What is it?” Benny didn’t like the intense look on Eve’s face.

  “I won’t be able to ask you back. Where they eat and I eat, it’s beyond the curtain you see.”

  “That doesn’t matter at all.” Benny was relieved that this was the only obstacle.

  “Of course, when I’m grown up and have my own place, you know, my cottage, I could ask you there,” Eve said earnestly.

  “Is it really your cottage?”

  “I told everyone.” Eve was belligerent.

  “I thought it might only be a pretend cottage,” Benny said apologetically.

  “How could it be pretend? It’s mine. I was born there. It belonged to my mother and my father. They’re both dead, it’s mine.”

  “Why can’t you go there now?”

  “I don’t know. They think I’m too young to live on my own.”

  “Well, of course you’re too young to live on your own,” Benny said. “But to visit?”

  “Mother Francis said it was sort of serious, my own place, my inheritance she calls it. She says I shouldn’t be treating it as a dolls’ house, a playing place when I’m young.”

  They thought about it for a while.

  “Maybe she’s right,” Benny said grudgingly.

  “She could be.”

  “Have you looked in the windows?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nobody’s gone and messed it all up on you?”

  “No, nobody goes there at all.”

  “Why’s that? It’s got a lovely view down over the quarry.”

  “They’re afraid to go there. People died there.”

  “People die everywhere.” Benny shrugged.

  This pleased Eve. “That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “So who died in the cottage?”

  “My mother. And then a bit later my father.”

  “Oh.”

  Benny didn’t know what to say. This was the first time Eve had ever talked about her life. Usually she flashed back with a Mind Your Own Business, if anyone asked her a question.

  “But they’re not in the cottage, they’re in heaven now,” Benny said eventually.

  “Yes, of course.”

  There seemed to be another impasse.

  “I’d love to go and look through the window with you sometime,” Benny offered.

  Eve was about to reply when Maire Carroll came by.

  “That was a nice party, Benny,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t know it was meant to be fancy dress though.”

  “What do you mean?” Benny asked.

  “Well, Eve was in fancy dress, weren’t you Eve? I mean that big red thing, that wasn’t meant to be ordinary clothes was it?”

  Eve’s face tightened into that hard look that she used to have before. Benny hated to see the expression come back.

>   “I thought it was quite funny myself,” Maire said with a little laugh. “We all did when we were coming home.”

  Benny looked around the school yard. Mother Francis was looking the other way.

  With all her strength Benny Hogan launched herself off the wall down on Maire Carroll. The girl fell over, winded.

  “Are you all right Maire?” Benny asked, in a falsely sympathetic tone.

  Mother Francis came running, her habit streaming behind her.

  “What happened child?” She was struggling to get Maire’s breath back, and raise her to her feet.

  “Benny pushed me …” Maire gasped.

  “Mother, I’m sorry, I’m so clumsy, I was just getting off the wall.”

  “All right, all right, no bones broken. Get her a stool.” Mother Francis dealt with the panting Maire.

  “She did it purposely.”

  “Shush, shush, Maire. Here’s a little stool for you, sit down now.”

  Maire was crying. “Mother, she just jumped down from the wall on me like a ton of bricks … I was only saying …”

  “Maire was telling me how much she liked the party Mother. I’m so sorry,” Benny said.

  “Yes, well Benny, try to be more careful. Don’t throw yourself around so much. Now, Maire, enough of this whining. It’s not a bit nice. Benny has said she was sorry. You know it was an accident. Come along now and be a big girl.”

  “I’d never want to be as big a girl as Benny Hogan. No one would.”

  Mother Francis was cross now. “That’s quite enough Maire Carroll. Quite enough. Take that stool and go inside to the cloakroom and sit there until you’re called by me to come away from it.”

  Mother Francis swept away. And as they all knew she would, she rang the bell for the end of break.

  Eve looked at Benny. For a moment she said nothing, she just swallowed as if there were a lump in her throat.

  Benny was equally at a loss, she just shrugged and spread out her hands helplessly.

  Suddenly Eve grasped her hand. “Someday, when I’m big and strong, I’ll knock someone down for you,” she said. “I mean it, I really will.”

  “Tell me about Eve’s mother and father,” Benny asked that night.

  “Ah, that’s all long ago now,” her father said.

  “But I don’t know it. I wasn’t there.”