by Maeve Binchy
Long enough for her to realize how often she had seen his face everywhere. She used to see his face smiling and frowning. She used to see it like Mr. Flood saw visions, up in trees and in the clouds. She used to see it in the patterns of leaves on the ground. When she woke and when she slept there was no other image in the foreground, and not because she summoned it there. It just wouldn’t go away.
That was the way it had been for a very long time, when things were good and when things were bleak.
But tonight she would have difficulty in seeing his face. She would have to wait until he came into the firelight to remember what he looked like. It was oddly restful.
They were still in full voice when someone saw Jack. The song didn’t stop. They were all exaggerating the words anyway, and laughing. A few people waved to him.
He stood on the edge.
Jack Foley on the edge of things. Nobody waved him into the center of the group. He smiled around him, glad to be back. His nightmares brushed away, his sins, he hoped, forgiven. He seemed happy to be part of the court again. Not even his worst enemy would ever have accused him of having wanted to be king. That’s just the way it had turned out.
Across the fire his eyes sought Benny. It was hard to know what he was asking her. Permission to be there? Pardon for everything that had gone before? Or the right to come and hold her in his arms?
Benny smiled the big, warm smile that had made him fall in love with her. Her welcome was real. She looked lovely in the light of the flames, and she did what no one else had done. She pointed him to where the drink was, where the long sticks lay for cooking the food. He opened a beer and moved slightly toward her. That had been an encouragement, hadn’t it?
There wasn’t much room on the rug where she sat leaning against Bill Dunne and the craggy bit of rock.
Nobody moved over to make space. They assumed he would sit down where he was.
After a few moments Jack Foley did that. Perched on a rock. On the edge.
Bill Dunne, who had his arm lightly around Benny’s shoulder, didn’t take it away because she hadn’t moved as he had thought she might.
The song was over and someone had started “Now Is the Hour.” They sang in exaggerated poses and mimes, in funny accents and pretense of huge passion. Benny looked into the fire.
It was peaceful here. There would be other nights like this. More like floating along than racing along. And as she saw the sticks move and huge showers of sparks fly up to the sky over the dark hills she couldn’t see Jack’s face.
All she could see were the flames and the sparks, and the long shadows out over the sand, and the edge of the sea with tiny bits of white coming in over the stones and the beach.
And the friends, all the friends sitting in a great circle, looking as if they were going to sing forever.
Since they were into sentimentality Fonsie said, they shouldn’t overlook “For ever, and ever, my heart will be true …”
The voices soared up to the sky with the smoke and the sparks and nowhere in the sky did Benny Hogan see the face of Jack Foley.
And Benny sang with the others, knowing that Jack Foley’s face was somewhere with all the faces around the fire, not taking over the whole night sky.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maeve Binchy was born and educated in Dublin. She is the bestselling author of The Return Journey, Evening Class, This Year It Will Be Different, The Glass Lake, The Copper Beech, The Lilac Bus, Circle of Friends, Silver Wedding, Firefly Summer, Echoes, Light a Penny Candle, London Transports, Scarlet Feather, Quentins, Nights of Rain and Stars, and Whitethorn Woods. She has written two plays and a teleplay that won three awards at the Prague Film Festival. She has been writing for The Irish Times since 1969 and lives with her husband, writer and broadcaster Gordon Snell, in Dublin.
