Circle of Friends

by Maeve Binchy

  Very few visitors came into 23 Maple Gardens. Brian’s builder’s yard was the center of his social activities, such as they were. The boys, Paul and Nasey, had never brought their friends home, and now they too worked with their father in the yard. That’s where fellows called to pick them up, or to take them over to a pub for a pint.

  And Nan, the baby of the family, eighteen years old and about to start at university today, Nan had not been one for inviting friends home either.

  Emily knew that her beautiful daughter had a dozen friends at school, she had seen her walking down the street when classes were over, surrounded by other girls. She went to the houses of friends, she was invited everywhere, but not one of her schoolmates had crossed the door of Maple Gardens.

  Nan was not just beautiful in Emily’s eyes. This was the opinion of everyone. When she was a small child people had stopped in the street asking why this little girl with the blond, almost white curls had never been chosen for the Pears soap advertisement … the one where it said “Growing up to be a beautiful lady.” In truth Emily did have dreams that one day in a park or on the street a talent scout would stop and see the perfect features and flawless skin of this child and come to the house begging on bended knees to transform her life.

  Because if there was anything that Emily Mahon wanted for her little princess, it was a transformed life.

  Emily wanted Nan to have everything that she had never had. She didn’t want the girl to marry a bullying drunk like her mother had done. She didn’t want a life of isolation stuck out here in a housing estate, only allowed to go out to work as a favor. Emily had read a lot of magazines, she knew that it was perfectly possible for a girl with Nan’s looks to rise to be the highest in the land. You saw the very beautiful wives of rich businessmen, and the really good-looking women photographed at the races on the arms of well-known people from important families. It was obvious that not all these people could have come from the upper classes. Their women were often plain and horsey. Nan was in the running for that kind of life, and Emily would do everything in her power to get it for her.

  It had not been hard to persuade Brian to come up with the fees for university. In his sober moods he was inordinately proud of his beautiful daughter. Nothing was too good for her. But that was when he was sober.

  And then, during this last summer, Nan had said, “You know, one day he’ll break your jaw and then it’ll be too late.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “He hit you last night, while I was out, when the boys weren’t here. I know he did.”

  “Now you know nothing of the sort.”

  “Your face, Em. What will you tell them today?”

  “The truth. That I got up in the night and walked into an open press.”

  “Is it going to be like that always? Will he get away with it for the rest of his life?”

  “You know how sorry he is Nan. You must know how he’d give any of us the moon after he’s been—not himself.”

  “It’s too high a price to pay for the moon,” Nan had said.

  And now today she was going to start out as a student, this lovely girl that Emily still looked on with awe. Brian had been handsome before alcohol had thickened his face, and she herself had good features, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. Their daughter seemed to have taken the best features and left the bad ones. Nan had no trace of the coarseness that was in her father’s face. Nor did she have any of the pale and slightly apologetic stance of her mother.

  As Emily Mahon stood in the kitchen she hoped that Nan would be warm and pleasant to her father this morning. Brian had been drunk last night, certainly, but there had been no dog’s abuse out of him.

  Emily turned the rashers expertly. There were three for Paul, three for Nasey, and four for Brian. Neither she nor Nan ate a cooked breakfast. Just a cup of tea and a slice of toast each. Emily filled the washing-up bowl with hot soapy water. She would collect their plates to steep when they had finished. Usually everyone left the house around the same time; she liked to have the table cleared before she closed the door behind her, so the place looked respectable when they came in again in the evenings. That way nobody would raise too many objections about Emily going out to work. It had been a battle hard fought.

  Nan had been so supportive during the long war waged with Brian. She had listened wordlessly to her father saying, “No wife of mine is going out to work. I want a meal on the table. I want a clean shirt …” She had heard her mother say that she could provide these things, but that the days were long and lonely on her own and she would like to meet people and to earn her own money, no matter how small.

  The boys, Paul and Nasey, had not been interested, but played the game to win and stuck with their father in the need to have a nice warm house and meals.

  Nan had been twelve then, and it was she who had tipped the balance.

  “I don’t know what you’re all talking about,” she had said suddenly. “None of you are ever in before six, winter or summer, and so there will be a meal. And if Em wants more money and will do all your washing and clearing as well, then I can’t see what the fuss is about.”

  Nobody else could either.

  So Emily had worked in a hotel shop since then; her own little world surrounded by nice things: glass and linen and high-class souvenirs for tourists. At first the hotel had been unwilling to employ someone with a young daughter. She would constantly need time off they told her. Emily had been able to look them straight in the eye even then and say that Nan would cause no trouble. And she had been right. It was only Brian who had ever interrupted the even style of her working life by phoning or calling, to ask idiotic questions about things that had already been agreed or arranged, but forgotten through drink.

  She called them, as she did every morning. “Breakfast going on the table.”

  Down they came, her two big sons, dark like their father, square and looking as if they had been manufactured by a toy firm to look like younger versions of a father in a game. Then came Brian, who had cut himself shaving, and was dabbing the blood on his chin. He looked at his wife without pleasure.

  “Do you have to wear that bloody garment in the house? Isn’t it bad enough going out to work as a skivvy in someone’s shop without dressing as a skivvy at home.”

  “It’s to keep my blouse clean,” Emily said mildly.

  “And you have your clothes draped so that the place looks like a hand-me-down shop,” he grumbled.

  Nan came in at that moment. Her blond curls looked as if she had just come from a hairdresser rather than from the handbasin in her own bedroom, which was where she had washed her hair this morning. Brian Mahon might have skimped on comfort for the rest of the house, but his daughter’s bedroom had the best of everything. A washbasin neatly boxed in, a big fitted wardrobe with even a rail for her shoes in it. Nothing had been spared on Nan’s room. Each item was an apology for a drunken bout. She wore a smart blue skirt, and her new navy three-quarter-length coat over her shoulders; a white lacy blouse with a navy blue trimming. She looked like the cover of a magazine.

  “That’s right, attack Em for leaving her blouse there, but if it’s seven of your shirts and seven each of the boys’, that’s twenty-one shirts ironed for you and there’s no word of it being a hand-me-down shop then, is there?”

  Her father looked at her in open admiration. “They’re going to look twice when you walk in the door of University College,” he said. Nan showed no pleasure at the compliment—in fact Emily seemed to think it irritated her.

  “Yes, that’s all very well, but we never discussed the matter of pocket money.”

  Emily wondered why Nan brought it up now. If she were to ask her father on her own, he would give her anything.

  “There’s never been any shortage of pocket money in this house.” His face was red and angry already.

  “Well, there hasn’t been any question of it up till now. Paul and Nasey went in to work for you, so they got a wage fro
m the start.”

  “A sort of wage,” Paul said.

  “More than any other human would give a lout like you,” his father retorted.

  Nan continued, “I wanted it to be clear from the start rather than having to ask every week.”

  “What’s wrong with asking every week?” he wanted to know.

  “It’s undignified,” she said shortly.

  That was exactly what Emily had felt each week asking for her housekeeping; now she could work out a budget to suit herself.

  “What do you want?” He was annoyed.

  “I don’t know. I’m not really entitled to anything. I’m going to be dependent on you for three or four years. What do you suggest?”

  He was at a loss. “We’ll see.”

  “I’d prefer if we could decide today. It would get things off to a good start. I’d know what I could buy, how long it would take me to save for something … a new dress or whatever.”

  “I bought you that coat there! It cost me an arm and a leg—it’s an ordinary navy coat to me, and it cost as much as a fur.”

  “It’s very well cut, that’s why. It will last for years.”

  “I should hope so,” he muttered.

  “So you see in order not to have discussions like this all the time, don’t you think …”

  Emily held her breath.

  “A pound a week for …”

  “Fares and lunches, yes, that’s fair …” She stood looking at him expectantly.

  “And what else is there …?”

  “Well, I suppose there’s cinema, newspapers, books, coffee, going to a dance.”

  “Another two pounds a week for that?” He looked anxiously at her.

  “Oh, that’s very generous, thank you. That would be marvelous.”

  “And what about clothes then …?” He nodded over at the coat that had cost him an arm and a leg.

  “I could manage stockings out of what you’ve given me.”

  “I want you as well dressed as the next man’s daughter.”

  Nan said nothing.

  “What would it cost?” He was like a child now.

  Nan looked at him thoughtfully, as if she knew he was in her power now.

  “Some people’s fathers give them an allowance by the month for clothes. A sum like … I don’t know … twenty … but I don’t know …”

  “You’ll have thirty pounds a month, nothing is shortchanged in this house.” He almost roared it.

  Emily Mahon watched Nan start to smile.

  “Thank you very much, Daddy, that’s more than generous,” she said.

  “Well”—he was gruff—“I won’t have you saying I’m not generous.”

  “I never said that, never once,” she answered him.

  “Well, all this business putting me on the carpet … implying that I might leave you short.”

  “In your right mind, Daddy, you’d never leave me short, but I don’t want to rely on your always being in your right mind.”

  Emily caught her breath.

  “What do you mean?” He was like a turkeycock now. “You know exactly what I mean. You’re two people, Daddy.”

  “You’re in no position to be giving me lectures.”

  “I’m not. I’m explaining why I wanted it on a regular arrangement so that I wouldn’t have to be annoying you when you’re … well, when you’ve had a drink I suppose.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Even the boys wondered what would happen now. The usual way of coping with their father had been to make no reference to anything untoward that might have happened, for fear of bringing it all upon them again. But Nan had chosen her time and place well.

  The silence was broken by Emily.

  “Well, that’s a very good allowance, there can’t be many girls setting off today who’d get that.”

  “No indeed.” Nan was undisturbed by the tension around her. “I mean it, Daddy. And I honestly think that if you are going to give me that much, it’s probably easier for you to do it once a month.”

  “Yes, that’s agreed,” he said.

  “So will I ask you for forty-two pounds today and then not come near you for a month?”

  Paul and Nasey looked at each other with widened eyes.

  “Forty-two pounds?” Her father seemed astounded.

  “You said three pounds a week, and thirty pounds for clothes.” She seemed apologetic. “It is a lot, I know.”

  “I’m not going back on my word.” He reached into his back pocket and took out a wad of old notes. He peeled them off.

  Emily willed her daughter to show the right amount of gratitude, she prayed that the girl wouldn’t take it for granted.

  But as usual Nan seemed to know better than everyone what to do.

  “I’m not going to go down on my knees and thank you, Daddy, because that would just be words. I’ll try to make you proud of me. Make you feel glad you’ve spent so much to put a daughter through College.”

  Brian Mahon’s eyes misted slightly. He swallowed but could say nothing. “That’s it,” he said eventually in a hoarse voice. “That’s it. Now could a man have a cup of tea in this place does anyone think?”

  In a big terraced house in Dun Laoghaire, another household was getting ready for the opening of the university term. Almost a town in itself, Dun Laoghaire was some miles from the center of Dublin, a big harbor where the mail boat came in and left every day for Holyhead bringing the holiday visitors. Full also on the outgoing journeys with emigrants about to seek their fortune in London.

  Ever since the days it had been called Kingstown, it had been a lovely place to live; tropical palm trees along the coastline made it seem like somewhere much more exotic than it really was. The sturdy Victorian houses spoke of a time when this was a place of substance and quality. It was healthy too; the two great arms of piers reached out into the sea and were a regular walking spot for anyone in need of a breath of air or some exercise.

  It was a curious mixture of staid respectability with overtones of holiday fun. Every year there was a big noisy carnival with its ghost trains and chairoplanes, and yet matrons with shallow baskets did sociable shopping excursions usually ending with coffee in Marine Road and tut-tutting over the state of the borough.

  Kit Hegarty moved swiftly around her large house in a quiet road that led down to the sea. She had a lot to do. The first day was always important, it set the tone for the whole year. She would cook them all a good breakfast and make it clear that she expected them to be at the table on time.

  She had kept students for seven years now, and was known as one of the University’s favored landladies. Normally they didn’t like to sanction a digs so far away from the city and the University buildings, but Mrs. Hegarty had been quick to explain how near her house was to the railway station, how short was the train journey into town, how good the bracing sea air.

  She didn’t need to plead for long; soon the authorities realized that this determined woman could look after students better than anyone. She had turned her big dining room into a study; there each boy had his own place at the big felt-covered table, books could be left undisturbed. It was expected in Kit’s house that there would be some period of study after supper, most nights at any rate. And her only son, Frank, studied with them too. It made him feel grown up sitting at the same table as real university students, engineers and agricultural science students, law or medicine, they had all sat and studied around the Hegarty dining table while young Frank was working for his Intermediate and his Leaving Certificate.

  Today he would join them as a fully fledged student himself.

  Kit hugged herself with pleasure at the thought that she had raised a son who would be an engineer. And raised him all on her own. Joseph Hegarty had been long gone now, his life in England was no concern of hers anymore. He had sent money for a little while, and dates when he was going to be back; and then excuses, and little money. And then nothing.

  She had tried not to bring Frank up with any bitt
erness against his father. She had even left a photograph of Joseph Hegarty in the boy’s room lest he should think that his father was being banished from his memory on top of everything else. It had been a heady day when she noticed the photograph no longer in a place of honor, on the chest of drawers, but moved to a shelf where it could hardly be seen, and then facedown, and then in the bottom of a drawer.

  Tall, gangly Frank Hegarty didn’t need any mythical father’s picture anymore.

  Kit wondered whether Joseph, if he had stayed around, would have had any views on Frank’s motorbike. It was a black 250cc BSA—his pride and joy.

  Probably not. He had never been a man to face up to anything unpleasant. And Frank’s bike was unpleasant. And dangerous, and it was the only black cloud in her life on this morning when her son started university.

  In vain she had pleaded and begged him to use the train. They were only minutes from the railway station, the service was frequent. She would pay for his weekly ticket. He could make as many journeys as he liked. It was the only thing he had ever stood out for.

  He had gone to Peterborough and worked long hours in a canning factory only that he could own this bike. Why did she want to take away the one possession that was truly valuable to him? Just because she didn’t know how to ride a motorbike or even want to, it was unfair that she should try to stop him.

  He was eighteen years and six months. Kit looked at the statue of the Infant of Prague that she kept in the house to impress the mothers of the students who boarded with her. She wished she had a stronger conviction that the Infant of Prague might be any earthly use in keeping her son safe on this terrible machine. It would be nice to have been able to offload your worries onto someone or something like that.