by Maeve Binchy
She wondered should she wear a corset like Mrs. Healy, or better still not like Mrs. Healy’s very obvious whalebone. There was the one she had seen advertised. “Nu Back corset … expands as you bend, stoop or twist … returns to position easily and cannot ride up when sitting.” It cost 19/11, almost a pound, and it did seem to promise everything you could dream of. Except of course it didn’t hold out any hope for the cheeks and the neck.
Benny sighed a lot. Wouldn’t it have been great going to lunch in a smart Dublin place if she were small and neat like Eve was. Or better still if she looked like Nan. If she looked so gorgeous that everyone would look and Jack Foley would be so proud and pleased that he had asked her.
Because Benny was never available for lunch anymore, Nan and Eve often found themselves walking together to one of the cafes near the University. Eve watched with a wry amusement as the boys came to join them wherever they went.
Nan put on an amazing performance Eve thought to herself. She had a practiced charm, but no gush whatsoever. Eve had never known anyone play such a role. But then she asked herself, was it a performance. She seemed totally natural and was invariably warm and pleasant to those who approached. Almost regal, Eve thought. It was as if she knew that there would be admiration everywhere and was quite accustomed to coping with it.
Eve was always included in the conversations, and, as she told Kit Hegarty in their easy companionship out in Dun Laoghaire, it was the best introduction you could have to every single male in UCD.
“Of course they do see me as a pale shadow,” Eve said sagely. “Like the moon not having any light of its own, it reflects the light of the sun.”
“Nonsense,” Kit said loyally. “That’s not a bit like you to be so humble.”
“I’m being practical,” Eve said. “I don’t mind it at all. There’s only one Nan in every generation.”
“Is she the sort of College Belle?”
“I suppose so, though she doesn’t act it. Not like that Rosemary, who thinks she’s at a party all day every day. Rosemary has a foot of makeup on, and she has eyelashes about ten inches long, you wouldn’t believe it. She keeps looking up and down so that no one will miss them. I wonder that doesn’t make herself dizzy or blind herself.”
Eve sounded very ferocious.
“But Nan’s not like that?” Kit Hegarty had yet to meet this paragon.
“No, and she’s just as nice to awful fellows as she is to real hunks. She spends ages talking to ones that are covered in pimples and can hardly string two words together. Which drives the hunks out of their minds.”
“And does she not have her eye on anyone for herself?” Kit asked. She thought that Eve was seeing far too much of the dazzling Nan and not nearly enough of her old friend Benny Hogan.
“Apparently not.” Eve was surprised too. “Because she could have anyone she liked, even Jack Foley, but she doesn’t seem to want them. It’s as if there’s something else out there that we don’t know about.”
“Martians?” Kit suggested.
“Nothing would surprise me.”
“How’s Benny, by the way?” Kit’s voice was deliberately casual.
“Funny you should ask. I haven’t seen her all week, except at lectures, and then only to wave across to.”
Kit Hegarty knew better than to probe or criticize, but her heart went out to that big untidy girl with the bright smile, the girl who had been Eve’s friend through thick and thin and now seemed to be left out in the cold. It was tough on ordinary moths and insects when a gorgeous butterfly like Nan came onto the scene.
“Eve, are you going to the Annexe?” Aidan Lynch seemed to be everywhere. He had a fawn duffel coat which had seen much better days, long curly hair which fell into his eyes, and dark horn-rimmed spectacles that he always said were plain glass but made him look highly intellectual.
“I wasn’t thinking of it, no.”
“Could the thought of my company there and back and the distinct possibility that I would buy you a coffee and a fly cemetery make you change your mind?”
“I’d love a fly cemetery,” Eve said, referring to the pastries with the black, squashy filling. “I cook breakfast for huge greedy men and I forgot to have any myself today.”
“Huge, greedy men?” Aidan was interested. “Do you live in a male harem?”
“No, a digs. I help with the housework to earn my keep.” She spoke without self-pity or bravado. For once the jokey Aidan was without words. But not for long.
“Then it’s my duty, not just my pleasure to feed you up,” he said.
“Nan won’t be there. She has a tutorial.”
A flicker of annoyance passed over his face. “I didn’t want Nan to be there. I wanted you.”
“Well recovered, Mr. Lynch.” She smiled at him.
“Is there anything more harsh in this life than to be misjudged, and have one’s motives entirely misunderstood?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Is there?” Eve liked the lanky law student. She had always thought of him as part of Jack Foley’s gang. Full of nonsense of course and all that lofty talk. But basically all right.
They walked companionably down the corridor toward the stone stairs that led to the Annexe, the College coffee shop. They passed the Ladies Reading Room on the way. Through the door Eve caught a glimpse of Benny sitting in a chair on her own.
“Aidan, just a minute. I’ll ask Benny to come with us.”
“No! I asked you,” he said, petulantly.
“Well, God Almighty, the Annexe is open to everyone in the whole place. It’s not as if you’d asked me to a candlelit dinner for two,” Eve blazed at him.
“I would have, but I don’t know where they serve them at this time of the morning,” he said.
“Don’t be a clown. Wait here a second.”
Benny’s mind seemed far away. Eve touched her shoulder.
“Oh, hallo,” she said, looking up.
“Good, you admit you know me. Let me introduce myself. My name is Eve Malone. We met some years ago in … where was it … Knockglen … yes that’s where it was!”
“Don’t, Eve.”
“What is it? Why don’t you play with me anymore?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You can tell me anything,” Eve said, kneeling down beside the chair.
Out in the corridor Aidan Lynch cleared his throat.
“No, go on, there’s a fellow waiting for you.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m on a diet,” Benny whispered.
Eve threw back her head and pealed with laughter. Everyone in the room looked over at them. Benny’s face got red.
“Now look what you’ve done,” she spat out furiously.
Eve looked into her friend’s eyes. “I’m only laughing with relief you great fool. Is that all? Well, I don’t think there’s any point in it. You’re grand as you are, but if you want to, be on one, but don’t run away from everybody. I thought I’d done something awful to you.”
“Of course not.”
“Well, come on, come and have a coffee with Aidan and myself.”
“No, I can’t bear the smell of food,” Benny said piteously. “My only hope is to keep away from where it is.”
“Will we have a walk in the Green at lunch then? There’s no food there,” Eve suggested.
“We might see someone feeding the ducks and I could snatch the bread and run off stuffing it down my throat,” Benny said with a hint of a smile.
“That’s better. I’ll pick you up in the Main Hall at one.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Oh, Benny, honestly!”
“What was all that about?” Aidan said, pleased to see that Eve had returned alone.
“I was letting Benny know where I was going and explaining that if I wasn’t back by a stated time she was to ring the guards,” Eve said to him.
“Aren’t you very droll.”
“Well, you’re not a great one at taking life too seriou
sly yourself,” she said with spirit.
“I knew we were suited, I knew from the very first minute I saw you. In bed.”
Eve just raised her eyes, not to encourage him. But Aidan was warming to the theme.
“It will be a nice thing to tell our grandchildren in years to come.”
“What?”
Aidan spoke in a child’s voice. “ ‘Tell me, Granddad, how did you and Grandmama meet?’ and then I’ll say, ‘Ho, ho, ho, little boy, we met when she was in bed. I was introduced to her in bed. It was like that way back in the fifties. It was a racy time, ho, ho, ho.’ ”
“You are an idiot.” Eve laughed at him.
“I know. I said we were well suited,” he said, tucking her arm into his as they joined the crowds on the stairs down to coffee.
Benny took out a small mirror from her handbag. She put it inside a copy of Tudor England and examined her face carefully. Five days with no food to speak of and her face was still round, her jaw was still solid and there was no sign of a long swanlike neck. It would almost make you give up believing in God.
“Are there women after you in College?” Aengus asked Jack Foley.
“I never looked.” Jack wasn’t concentrating.
“You’d know. They’d be breathing heavily,” Aengus explained.
Jack looked up from his notes.
“They would?”
“So I hear.”
“Where do you hear this?”
“Well, mainly from Ronan. He was doing a very funny imitation of people in a car, huffing and puffing. He says that girls get like that when they’re passionate.”
“And where did he see all this that he could be imitating it?” Jack asked, a trifle anxiously.
Aengus was innocent. “I don’t know. You know Ronan.”
Jack did know his brother Ronan and he had an uneasy feeling that there had been someone in the vicinity when he had been saying good-bye to Shirley the other night. Shirley was quite unlike most of the other girls in UCD. She had been in America for a year, which made her very experienced. She had offered Jack a lift home from the Solicitors’ Apprentice dance last Saturday night at the Four Courts. She had her own car and her own code. She had parked right outside his house under a streetlight.
When he had murmured that they might have more shade, Shirley had said, “I like to see what I’m kissing.”
Now it looked as if his brother had also seen whatever kissing had been going on.
Jack Foley made a note to leave Shirley alone. Next time it would be Rosemary or even the ice-cool Nan Mahon. No more crazy ladies thank you very much.
Benny ate an apple walking around St. Stephen’s Green at lunchtime and felt a little bit better. Eve never spoke of the diet again. Benny knew she didn’t even need to warn her not to tell Nan. It wasn’t that Nan wouldn’t be helpful, she’d be very helpful. It was just that Nan didn’t ever need to try. She just was perfect already, and it put her in a different world.
Instead they talked about Aidan Lynch and how he was going to come out to Dun Laoghaire tonight and take Eve to the pictures. He understood that she had to wash up after supper. He’d come out on the train.
“I’ve missed you a lot, Eve,” Benny said suddenly.
“Me too. Why can’t you stay in town some evening?”
“You know.”
Eve did know. The arguments about the evenings drawing in, the dark nights, it would be such hard work they decided they should wait until Benny had a real date, a real reason to stay in town. It almost seemed like frittering it away to use a night off just for the two of them to be together like the old days.
“I’d love it if you’d come home to Knockglen,” Benny said. “And not that I’m twisting your arm, but I know Mother Francis would too.”
“I will,” Eve promised. “It’s just that I’ve got obligations too. It’s then that I’m the most help to Kit. I get the Saturday tea over so quickly it would make your head swim. I keep telling the lads they have to be on the six-thirty train into town to see the action. They don’t know what I mean but it gets a bit of urgency into them. Otherwise they’d be dawdling there all night.”
Benny giggled. “You’re a terrible tyrant.”
“Nonsense. I was raised by an army general in St. Mary’s, that’s all. Mother Francis would get her way over anything. Then on Sundays we have this rule. They get a big Sunday lunch, and there’s a plate of salad left under a tea towel for each of them in the evening, no serving or anything.”
“I’m sure she’s delighted with you,” Benny said.
“I’m a bit of company. That’s all.”
“Does she ever talk about her son?”
“Not much. But she cries over him at night. I know that.”
“Isn’t it extraordinary that people can love their children so much that they kind of live for them?”
“Your parents do. That’s part of the problem. Still, it’s nice to know they do,” Eve said.
“Yours would have, if they’d stayed round long enough.”
“And if they’d been sane,” Eve said dryly.
Benny sat beside Rosemary at the history lecture. She had never really spoken to her before. She wanted to look at Rosemary’s makeup and wondered was there anything she could learn.
As they waited for the lecturer to arrive they talked idly.
“Knockglen?” Rosemary said. “That’s the second time I heard of that today. Where is it?”
Benny told her, and added glumly that it was too far to be accessible and too near to let you live in Dublin.
“Who was talking about it?” Rosemary puckered up her face trying to think. She often applied a little Vaseline to her eyelashes in the privacy of the lecture hall. It was meant to make them grow. She did so openly in front of Benny, who was no rival that must be kept out of beauty secrets.
Benny watched with interest. Then Rosemary remembered.
“I know. It was Jack. Jack Foley. He was saying that a friend of his fancies someone from Knockglen. It’s not you by any chance.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Benny’s heart was like lead. Rosemary was on such close terms with Jack, and Jack was making a joke out of Knockglen.
“His friend Aidan. You know, goofy Aidan Lynch. He’s quite witty actually, it sort of makes up for everything else.”
Benny felt her cheeks burning. Is this the way people talked? People like Jack and Rosemary and maybe even Nan for all she knew. Did handsome people have different rules?
“And did Jack approve of whoever Aidan fancied?” she wanted to keep Jack’s name in the conversation, however painful it was.
“Oh yes. He said it was a great place. He’s been there.”
“Really.” Benny remembered every moment of the day that Jack Foley had been in her town in her house in her company. She could probably give a transcript like they did in court cases of every word that had been said.
“He’s really out of this world,” Rosemary confided. “You know, not only is he a rugby star, but he’s bright. He got six honors in his Leaving, and he’s nice.”
So Rosemary had prized out of Jack how well he had done in his exams leaving school, just like she had.
“Are you going out with him?” Benny asked.
“Not yet, but I will be, that’s my project,” Rosemary said.
All during the lecture on Ireland under the Tudors Benny sneaked little looks at her neighbor. It was so monstrously unfair that a girl like Rosemary should have a bar of KitKat in her bag and have no spots and no double chin.
And when had she had all these conversations with Jack Foley? In the evenings probably. Or even the early evenings, when poor Benny Hogan was sitting like a big piece of freight on the bus back to Knockglen.
Benny wished she hadn’t eaten the apple. Perhaps what her system had wanted was a complete shock. No food at all after eighteen years of too much food. Maybe the apple had delayed the process.
She looked at Rosemary and wondered was there a
ny hope that she would fail in her project.
“How’s work, Nan?” Bill Dunne prided himself on getting on well with women. He thought that Aidan Lynch’s reputation was quite unjustified. That was fine at school when everyone was jokey. But in University women were there because they were studious. Or because they wanted people to think they were studious. You couldn’t go on trick-acting and making schoolboy jokes to university women. You pretended to take their studies seriously.
Nan Mahon smiled one of her glorious smiles. “I suppose it’s like it is for everyone else,” she said. “When you like the lecturers, when you enjoy the subject, it’s fine. When you don’t, it’s hell, and there’s going to be hell to pay at the end.”
The words themselves were meaningless, but Bill liked the tone. It was warm and almost affectionate.
“I wonder could I take you to dinner one night?” he asked.
He had thought this out carefully. A girl like Nan must get asked to hops, and to pubs and to parties and to cinemas all the time. He wanted to move it one grade up the ladder.
“Thank you, Bill.” The smile was still warm. “I don’t go out very much. I’m a real dull stick. I study a bit during the week, you see. In order to keep up.”
He was surprised and disappointed. He had thought dinner would work.
“Perhaps we could dine at a weekend, then. When you’re not so tied up.”
“Saturdays, I usually go to the debate, and then down to the Four Courts. It’s become a bit of a ritual.” She smiled apologetically.
Bill Dunne wasn’t going to beg. He knew that would get him nowhere.
