Circle of Friends

by Maeve Binchy

  “There’ll have to be great changes.”

  “I know.” She spoke solemnly and weightily. That was the only language he understood, heavy pontificating phrases. But she thought a look of alarm came into his eyes as if her words had been menacing.

  “Did you find what you were looking for in the books?” His glance never left hers.

  “I wasn’t looking for anything, as I told you I just wanted to familiarize myself with the day-to-day workings before I met Mr. Green.”

  “I thought your mother wanted to see them.” His lip curled a little.

  “She did. She understands much more than any of us realized.”

  Benny didn’t know why she had said this. Annabel Hogan knew nothing of the business that her dowry had helped to buy. She had deliberately stayed away from it, thinking it to be a man’s world where the presence of a woman would be an intrusion. Men didn’t buy suits and get measured in a place with a woman around it.

  Suddenly Benny realized that this had been the tragedy of her parents’ life. If only her mother had been able to get involved in the shop how different things would have been. They would have shared so much more, their interest in Benny would not have been so obsessive. And her mother, in many ways a sharper, more practical person than Eddie Hogan, might have spotted this discrepancy, if such it was, and headed it off long ago. Long before it looked as serious as it looked now.

  Emily Mahon knocked on the door of Nan’s bedroom and came in carrying a cup of tea.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any milk in it?”

  Nan had taken to having a slice of lemon instead. It was puzzling for the rest of the family, who poured great quantities of milk in their tea, which they drank noisily from large mugs.

  “It is nice, Em. Try it,” Nan urged.

  “It’s too late for me to change my ways, and no point in it either—not like you.”

  Emily knew that her daughter had found a special person at last.

  She knew from the amount of preparation that went on in the bedroom, from the new clothes, the wheedling money from her father and mainly from the sparkle in Nan’s eyes.

  On the bed lay a small petal hat. It matched exactly the wild silk dress and bolero in lilac trimmed with a darker purple. Nan was going to the races today. An ordinary working day for most people, a studying day for students, but a day at the races for Nan.

  Emily was on late shift; they had the house to themselves.

  “You’ll be careful, love, won’t you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. I don’t ask you about him because I know you think it’s bad luck, and we wouldn’t want to be meeting him anyway, lowering your chances. But you will be careful?”

  “I haven’t slept with him, Em. I haven’t a notion of it.”

  “I didn’t mean only that.” Emily had meant only that, but it seemed a bit bald to hear it all out in the open.

  “I meant, careful about not neglecting your College studies, and not going in fast cars.”

  “You meant sleeping, Em.” Nan laughed affectionately at her mother. “And I haven’t, and I won’t, so relax.”

  “Are you and I going to keep teasing each other forever, or will we give in to ourselves and go to bed together soon?” Simon asked Nan as they drove to the race meeting.

  “Are we teasing each other? I didn’t notice.”

  He looked at her admiringly. Nothing threw her. She was never at a disadvantage.

  And she looked really beautiful today. Her photograph would probably be in the papers. Photographers always looked for somebody classy as well as the ladies with silly hats. His companion was exactly the girl they would seek out.

  They got stuck with a lot of people as soon as they went into the Enclosure. At the parade ring Molly Black, a very bossy woman with a shooting stick, looked Nan up and down with some care. Her own daughter had once been a candidate for Simon Westward’s interest. This was a very different type of girl for him to parade. Handsome certainly. A student by all accounts, living in Dublin, and giving nothing away whatsoever about herself or her background.

  Mrs. Black moaned about the decree from Buckingham Palace abolishing the debutantes’ presentation at court.

  “I mean, how will anyone know who anyone is once that goes?” Molly Black said, staring at Nan with gimlet eyes.

  Nan looked around for Simon, hurt he wasn’t at hand. She resorted to her usual system, answering a question with another.

  “Why are they abolishing it, really, do you think?”

  “It’s obvious. You have to be presented by someone who was herself presented. Some of these are on rather hard times, and they take a fee from really dreadful businessmen to present their ghastly daughters. That’s what caused it all.”

  “And did you have someone to be presented?” Nan’s voice was cool and her manner courteous.

  She had hit home.

  “Not my immediate family, no, obviously,” said Mrs. Black, annoyed. “But all one’s friends, one’s friends’ children. It was so nice for them, such a good system. They met like-minded people until all this crept in.”

  “But I suppose that it’s easy to tell like-minded people, to recognize them, do you think?”

  “Yes it is, quite easy.” Molly Black was gruff.

  Simon was at her elbow again.

  “Having a most interesting conversation about doing the Season with your little friend here,” Mrs. Black said to him.

  “Oh good.” Simon moved them away.

  “What a battle-ax,” he said.

  “Why do you bother with her then?”

  “Have to.” He shrugged. “She and Teddy are everywhere. Guarding their daughters from fortune hunters like myself.”

  “Are you a fortune hunter?” Her smile was light and encouraging.

  “Of course I am. You’ve seen the house,” he said. “Come and let’s have a very large drink and put a lot of money we can’t afford on a horse. That’s what living is all about.”

  He took her by the arm and led her across the grass through the crowds into the bar.

  The meeting with Mr. Green was very low-key. It was held in Lisbeg. Benny had woken her mother up enough to attend by strong coffee and a stern talking-to.

  Her mother must not ask that things be put off, or postponed until later. There was no later, Benny insisted. Hard as it was on all of them, they owed it to Father to make sure that things didn’t end in a giant muddle.

  Benny had begged her mother to recall any conversations about Sean’s partnership. The letter existed, the letter saying that the intention was there. Had there been anything at all that made her think it had been formalized?

  Wearily, Annabel said that Father had kept saying there was no need to rush things, that they’d wait and see, that everything got done in time.

  But had he said that about things in general, or about Sean’s partnership?

  She really couldn’t remember. It was very difficult for her to remember, she complained. It seemed such a short time since Eddie Hogan had been alive and well and running his own business. Today he was buried and they were meeting a solicitor to discuss business dealings that she knew nothing of. Could Benny not be more patient and understanding?

  Patsy served coffee in the drawing room, aired and used now because of the stream of sympathizers who had filled the house. There were just the three of them. Benny said they would telephone Sean Walsh and ask him to join them after a suitable period.

  Mr. Green told them what they already knew, which was that the late Mr. Hogan, despite numerous reminders, suggestions and cautions, had made no will. He also told them what they didn’t know, which was that the Deed of Partnership had been drawn up and prepared ready for signature, but it had not been signed.

  Mr. Green had been in Knockglen as was his wont on four Friday mornings in January, but on none of these occasions had Mr. Hogan approached him with a view to signing the document.

  On the on
e occasion that Mr. Green had reminded him of it, the late Mr. Hogan had said that he still had something to think about.

  “Do you think he had discovered anything that made him change his mind? After all he did write that letter to Sean before Christmas.” Benny was persistent.

  “I know. I have a copy of the letter. It was sent to me in the post.”

  “By my father?”

  “I rather think by Mr. Walsh.”

  “And there were no hints or feelings … Did you get any mood that the thing was wrong, somehow?”

  “Miss Hogan, you’ll have to forgive me for sounding so formal, but I don’t deal in the currency of feelings or moods. As a lawyer I have to deal in what is written down.”

  “And what is written down is an intent to make Sean Walsh a partner, isn’t that right?”

  “That is correct.”

  Benny had no proof, only an instinct. Possibly in the weeks before his death her father, too, had noticed that they seemed to be lodging less than they took. But there had been no confrontation. Had there been a face-to-face accusation he would have told his wife about it, and Mike in the office would have heard every word.

  Perhaps her father had been waiting to find proof, so this is what she, too, must do.

  Like her father she would ask to delay the partnership agreement, by saying that it was hard to know who should be the parties to it.

  Mr. Green, who was a cautious man, said that it was always wise to postpone any radical change until well after a bereavement. They agreed that now would be the time to have Sean Walsh to the house.

  Fresh coffee was brought in when Sean arrived.

  He explained that he had closed the shop. It was impossible to allow Mike to remain in control. He was a man who had given untold service in the past, no doubt, but as Mr. Hogan used to say, poor Mike wasn’t able for a lot in today’s world.

  Her father used to say that, Benny remembered, but he had said it with affection and concern. He had not said it with the knell of dismissal echoing around it.

  The arrangement was that for the moment everything would carry on as it was. Did Sean think that they needed to employ somebody on a temporary basis? He said that all depended.

  Depended on what, they wondered? On whether Miss Hogan was thinking of abandoning her university studies and coming to work in the shop with him. If that were to happen, then there would be no need to employ a casual.

  Benny explained that nothing was further from her father’s dreams. Her parents were both anxious that she should be a university graduate, but she would nonetheless take a huge and continuing interest in the shop. She almost kicked her mother into wakefulness and a few alert statements that she would do the same thing.

  Very casually and with no hint of anything being amiss, Benny asked if the very simple bookkeeping system could be explained to them. Laboriously Sean went through it.

  “So what’s in in the Takings Book should be more or less as what’s in the Lodging Book each week.” Her eyes were round and innocent.

  “Yes. Give or take the Drawings,” he said.

  “Drawings?”

  “Whatever your father took out of the till.”

  “Yes. And the little pink slips, they say what those were, is that right?”

  “When he remembered.” Sean’s voice was sepulchral and trying-not-to-speak-ill-of-the-dead. “Your father was a wonderful man, as you know, but forgetful in the extreme.”

  “What might he have taken money out for?” Benny’s heart was cold. There would never be any proof, not if this was believed.

  “Well, let me see.” Sean looked at Benny. She was wearing her best outfit, the new skirt and bolero top that she had been given as a Christmas present.

  “Well, maybe for something like your clothes, Benny. He might have taken money out to pay for an outfit without remembering to sign a Drawings slip.”

  She knew now that she was defeated.

  Kevin Hickey said that his father was coming up from Kerry and wondered could Mrs. Hegarty recommend a good hotel in Dun Laoghaire?

  “God, Kevin, you pass a dozen of them yourself every day,” Kit said.

  “I think he wanted your choice rather than mine.”

  Kit suggested the Marine, and she booked it for him.

  She supposed that Kevin’s father would like to see the house where his son lived all through the academic year, and urged the boy to bring him round for a cup of tea during his visit.

  Paddy Hickey was a big, pleasant man. He explained that he was in machinery in the country. He had a small bit of land, but there wasn’t the streak of a farmer in any of them. His brothers had all gone to America, his sons had all done degrees in something, but none of them in agriculture.

  Like all Kerrymen he said he put a great emphasis on education.

  Kit and Eve liked him. He talked easily about the boy of the house who had died and asked to see a picture of him.

  “May he rest in peace, poor young lad who never got a chance to know what it was like down here,” he said.

  It was awkward but affecting. Neither Kit nor Eve felt able to say anything in reply.

  He thanked them for giving his son such a good home, and encouraging him to study.

  “No hope he’s getting anywhere with a fine-looking young girl like yourself?” he asked Eve.

  “Ah no, he wouldn’t look at me,” Eve said, laughing.

  “Besides, she has a young law student besotted about her,” Kit added.

  “That must leave you lonely here, sometimes, Mrs. Hegarty,” he said. “When all the young folk go out of an evening.”

  “I manage,” Kit said.

  Eve realized that the man was revving up to ask Kit Hegarty out. She knew that Kit herself was quite unaware of this.

  “You do manage,” Eve said. “Of course you do. And people want you everywhere, but I’d love you to go out and be silly, just once.”

  “Well, talking of being silly,” said big Paddy Hickey. “I don’t suppose there’s a chance you’d accompany a poor lonely old Kerry widower out for a night on the town.”

  “Well, isn’t that great,” cried Eve, “because we’re all going out tonight, every single one of us.”

  Kit looked startled.

  “Come back for her about seven o’clock, Mr. Hickey. I’ll have her ready for you,” Eve said.

  When he was gone Kit turned on Eve in a fury.

  “Why are you behaving like that? Cheap and pushy. It isn’t at all like you.”

  “It’s not like me for me, but by God I’d need it for you.”

  “I can’t go out with him. I’m a married woman.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Yes, I am. No matter what Joseph did in England I’m married anyway.”

  “Oh, belt up Kit.”

  “Eve!”

  “I mean it. I really do. Nobody’s asking you to commit adultery with Kevin’s father you great fool, just go out with him, tell him about your living encumbrance across the channel if you want to. I wouldn’t personally, but you will. But don’t throw a decent man’s invitation back in his face.”

  She looked so cross that Kit burst out laughing.

  “What’ll I wear?”

  “That’s more like it.” Eve gave her a big squeeze as they went upstairs to examine both of their wardrobes.

  “I was wondering would you consider Wales a sort of break …” Jack asked Benny hopefully.

  “No, it’s too soon.”

  “I just thought it could be a change. They always say that’s a good thing.”

  Benny knew what he meant. She longed to go to Wales with him. She longed to be his girl, on a boat sailing out from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead. She longed to be sitting beside him on a train, and meeting the others and being Benny Hogan, Jack Foley’s girl, with everything that that implied.

  And she knew that a change could clear her head of the thoughts and the suspicions that buzzed around in it.

  She had tried to get her mot
her to make a visit. To go to her brothers and their wives. They had been very solicitous at the funeral. But Annabel Hogan told Benny sadly that they had never approved of her marrying Eddie all those years ago, a man younger than she was with no stake in any business. They had thought she should have done better for herself. She didn’t want to go to stay in their homes, large country places, and tell them tales of a marriage which had worked for her but which they had never thought anything of.

  No, she would stay in her home and try to get used to the way things were going to be from now on.

  But Benny didn’t want to explain all this to Jack. Jack wasn’t a person to weigh down with problems. The great thing was that he seemed so glad to see her. He took no notice of the admiring glances coming at him from every corner of the Annexe. He sat on his hard wooden chair and drank cup after cup of coffee. He had two fly cemeteries, but Benny said she had gone off them. In fact her whole being cried out for one, but she was eating no cakes, bread puddings, chips or biscuits. If she had not had Jack Foley to light up everything for her, it would have been a very dull life indeed.

  Nan was delighted to see Benny back at lectures.

  “I had no one to talk to. It’s great to see you again,” she said.

  Despite herself, Benny was pleased.

  “You had Eve. Lord, I envy the two of you being here all the time.”

  “I don’t think Eve is too pleased with me,” Nan confided. “I’ve been going out with Simon you see, and she doesn’t approve.”

  Benny knew that was true: Eve did not approve, but then it would have been the same with anyone who went out with Simon. She felt that he should have made some effort to make provisions for his cousin once he was old enough to understand the situation.

  And she felt that Nan had been sneaky. Eve always claimed that Benny had been dragged to the Hibernian with the express purpose of making the introduction. Benny thought that was impossible, but there were some subjects on which Eve was adamant.

  “And where does he take you?” Benny loved to hear Nan’s cool comments on the high life that Simon Westward was opening up.

  She described the back bar in Jammets, the Red Bank, the Bailey and Davy Byrne’s.

  “He’s so much older, you see,” Nan explained. “So most of his friends meet in bars and hotels.”