A Few of the Girls

by Maeve Binchy

  But the place had never been joyless, and denying the season like Shane’s surroundings would be.

  She rejected her father next. He too would be barely aware of her presence. She would add nothing to his celebration by being there. His housekeeper would have prepared a meal and it would be eaten in agreeable and, from his point of view, companionable silence.

  But there would be no music on the record player, no lovely old traditional carols like Janet would play. No midnight mass or service of nine carols and nine lessons on the television. Such noise would distract from reading.

  So she struck his name from the list.

  He was closely followed by Janet’s sister, Kate. Kate had a marriage that worked. Or sort of worked. That is, if you thought of marriage as a military campaign.

  They operated by some kind of schedule in that house. If Janet was ever invited to dinner it was a case of: “See you in your right mind at nineteen forty hours, we sit down to eat at twenty hours and let’s say carriages at eleven.”

  Christmas there would be ordained and planned by a schedule typed out on a clipboard.

  Janet’s own little home had never needed any such severity. Edward always said it was a place where anyone could feel truly relaxed. There were no rules, no timetables. It would be hard to spend Christmas in a place where there was a Program of Activities and Duties. Kate was eliminated.

  Would Mother be very disappointed if Janet were to refuse the invitation?

  No, in truth she believed that Mother would be relieved. There was always so much to do, those hours on the exercise bicycle, those long sessions at the facial sauna, the careful painting of nails, lacquering of hair into position.

  And Janet would have to do something similar if she were not to let Mother down, blow her cover, and reveal her as a woman with a middle-aged daughter. Such pretense would be wearying.

  Here, in her own place, there was no need to impress or create an image. It would be hard to leave such a peaceful place and go to one of such frenetic activities as her mother’s.

  A line went through her mother’s name.

  Now it was a matter of Rose.

  This was the option that made most sense. Rose had said so from the start.

  “Why go to your dreary family, each one of them set in their own ways?” she had asked Janet in the tone of voice that brooked no disagreement.

  “This is what you should have been doing for years rather than waiting for that lowlife to get in touch,” she said. She would say it again and again.

  Rose would be a good friend and a pleasant companion.

  But it would be sun-filled days and moonlit evenings full of I-told-you-so, full of fury about the known faithlessness of men.

  In order to have any peace she would have to deny Edward. She would have to say that he had been a waste of time. Admit that he had taken the best years of her life and given her nothing in return.

  But this was too high a price to pay.

  She would not betray Edward.

  He had not taken the best years of her life; he had given her the best years.

  She had been happy. Deliriously happy when he was there, happy in remembrance of his visit and happy in anticipating the next time she would see him.

  She felt no sense of being passed over, or having sacrificed her own career for his.

  His various promotions were a joy to her on each occasion, celebrated in her peaceful, cheerful flat with champagne and lovemaking.

  He knew she wanted the best for him as he did for her. They were bound by no rules and regulations like her sister, Kate; no pretense like her mother was; no fears and phobias like her brother; no cold indifference like her father’s touched their relationship. There was no bitterness and hate as there was in Rose’s life.

  So, for the first time in her spiral notebook the decisions had not automatically filtered one to the top.

  She would accept none of these invitations.

  She would stay instead in her own apartment.

  She would decorate it with green leaves and red berries.

  She would put up cards and silver bells.

  She would play the old traditional songs of Christmas. She would sip good wine and watch the television programs showing how people all around the world were celebrating. She was not a woman whose life had been ruined. She was one whose life had been enhanced.

  True, she would never be seen as one of the Sisters who led the fight for women’s independence, but neither would she be looked on as a poor female who thought that youth and grooming were the only feminine traits which mattered. She was not like Rose, but neither was she like her mother.

  She would sit in her own place and have her own Christmas. She believed that, despite his protestations that their love was over, Edward would come to see her as usual on Christmas Eve and she would be here for him.

  She would ask nothing more than he was able to give and she felt in her heart that he would still be able to give the little he had given over the past two decades. It cost him so little and it meant so much.

  He had once said she was the true spirit of Christmas. Wasn’t that a wonderful memory to have, the man you loved paying such a compliment? What wife, what young loved girl ever heard words so full of meaning?

  And, as the shops filled up their windows with seasonal gifts, as the fuss and excitement of the Christmas season began all over again, Janet Mills went through it calmly. Five people were disappointed that she would not join them at their invitation, or said they were disappointed. Heads were shaken, brows darkened, and tut-tuts were heard.

  But Miss Mills, the calm Miss Mills, who knew where everything was in the office, and how everything was done, and how decisions were made, didn’t seem to be aware of the head shaking and the tutting and the sighing about her.

  None of these people had ever been called the Spirit of Christmas. None of them would ever know the happiness she had known—and since happiness was in the heart anyway, she knew she would have a better Christmas than all of them put together.

  Catering for Love

  Ronnie often thought that a degree in psychology might be a better training for a caterer than all those cookery courses she had done. True, it was a help to be able to make the food without any flap or fuss in the most awkward kitchens ever designed by humans. True, it was essential to have learned how to cost and budget and give a menu that would be competitive but still leave her with some profit. But really and truly, after three years in the job, Ronnie thought that she should have called herself a patter down, a soother, a consoler. She seemed to spend more of her time dealing with the nerves of the hostess than with food for the guests. She was so often placating people she wondered should she advertise that her service was placating rather than catering. It might be a better job description.

  She didn’t think it would be like that when she went to Dara Duffy’s house. Everyone knew who Dara Duffy was. She was a Success. A very good-looking thirty-year-old, who had risen to the top of at least two jobs—she was on the board of this, on the committee for that, she was on television, she was at the races, she was at the theater and at gallery openings. She had a great big head of black, shiny hair, like an advertisement for shampoo, and a warm smile. Dara Duffy could have had any man, one assumed, but she was the regular, if not constant, companion of Tom O’Brien. That was Tom “High Flier” O’Brien, as the newspapers always called him, usually photographed with a briefcase in his hand, laughing and at ease wherever he went, the boy with the golden touch, the man who had everything. Everything except a wife and family, but then he was still far enough away from forty not to worry about that. People wondered about him and Dara Duffy; they said there would be a huge wedding in the summer, or a quiet one in Paris or New York, with a huge party afterwards while they laughed shamefacedly at what they had done.

  Ronnie was impressed by Dara Duffy on the telephone—she was friendly and businesslike at the same time. She explained exactly what she wanted, a buff
et supper for twelve, the main course hot, but one that wouldn’t spoil if guests were late. She didn’t want to pretend that she had done it herself; in fact, she would love it if Ronnie would come and help her serve it so that she could enjoy herself.

  Ronnie could understand why this woman had been such a success; her manner was so pleasant, asking for advice and listening to it. She said she would confirm their arrangement in writing and send a deposit. Ronnie wished that all customers were so thoughtful. Only a week ago she’d had a woman who changed her mind so often about the menu that six totally different meals had been ordered and planned. It had been a house with a tiny old-fashioned kitchen and no space and it had not been an easy night. Ronnie felt sure that things would be different at Dara Duffy’s place.

  For one thing, Dara had asked her to call around and inspect the premises, to see if there was anything further that was needed. Ronnie always felt that it made a booking much easier if you knew the lay of the land. To some places you definitely needed to take an extra cooker, to others a bag of ice. Hostesses were renowned for telling you they had plenty of plates when in fact they hadn’t nearly enough and nothing matching—they didn’t realize that the presentation was a great part of it. In fact, some hostesses were insulted if Ronnie brought her plain white china with her.

  Ronnie admired the window boxes and the climbing plants outside Dara Duffy’s small house. How did this woman have the time to do all this as well as everything else?

  Dara opened the door, smaller than she looked on television, and a little tired around the eyes, but the same warm, friendly smile and the sense of genuine pleasure that could not have been put on for the occasion.

  She brought Ronnie into the house and poured a glass of wine. She was utterly unaffected, Ronnie thought, delighted with the praise of the house, enthusing herself at all the space that had been created and how quiet the street was. She talked eagerly about the party: it was a welcome home for a friend of hers, a man who had been in America for a month. He would fly in on Friday morning, rest all day, and be ready for a great gathering in the evening. Dara Duffy’s big dark eyes looked bright and eager as she spoke of the man coming back from New York. She referred to him as Tom, and each time she said the name she seemed to smile more broadly.

  Ronnie thought they must be very well suited, the whiz-kid businessman and this lovely girl. She sighed to herself about how clever some women were. Dara Duffy knew exactly how to handle this man: she was putting no pressures on him, making no demands, instead she had decided to give a supper for his friends. No wonder she had Tom O’Brien in the palm of her hand.

  They walked into the kitchen, and as Ronnie had expected, everything was perfect: there was style and space, it had been well laid out. There was plenty of simple unfussy china, cutlery, and glassware.

  By the time she left Ronnie thought of Dara Duffy as a friend, a friend she slightly envied. It was wonderful to have created that kind of life, to be content with your own company on the many, many evenings that Tom O’Brien would not be around. Ronnie had seen the books, the records, the well-thumbed cookery books. Dara Duffy could have done this party herself, it was just that she would be working late and wanted it to be extraspecial. Ronnie drove home, back to the flat she shared with two friends. She hoped that when she was as old as Dara Duffy she would be independent and confident like that and have a fantastic man like Tom O’Brien flying home to be with her.

  Ronnie was determined that the supper was going to be perfect, not just because she might get more jobs out of it—Tom and Dara’s friends would be the people who could afford a caterer, people who might take her card. After all, that was how Dara had come across her, at a press reception, and had quietly asked for a brochure. But Ronnie wanted it to be perfect because Dara deserved it. Sometimes you came across truly nice people. She was one of them.

  She went through the rest of her jobs that week. A directors’ lunch, where she felt the food was ruined because they smoked and drank so much, a prewedding drinks party where the bride-to-be and her mother had obviously had a major row twenty minutes before Ronnie arrived. A bridge party where four tables of serious bridge players might as well have been served slices of cardboard for all the interest they took in the food, all sixteen of them itching to get back to the table.

  On the Thursday she had a small dinner, a woman she didn’t know very well who often asked Ronnie to deliver and prepare a meal for six, but to stay in the kitchen—the meal was passed off as being home-cooked. In fact, she had to use the woman’s dishes to prepare it. Ronnie never minded this, people paid for a service and they got it; she didn’t expect to be on stage and feted for everything she did.

  Ronnie was getting the garnish ready for the soup when she heard the easy laugh of Tom O’Brien coming from the living room where the guests were having drinks. She had heard him so many times being interviewed, and this laugh was distinctive. But then he wasn’t coming back until tomorrow, until Dara’s party.

  Ronnie peered through the hatch. Normally she had no interest in who was at these parties. They were not likely to employ her since they thought that the food was homemade—she was not meant to exist. Perhaps Tom had come home a day early and he and Dara were here. What a coincidence that she should see them from the kitchen.

  But she saw that though Tom O’Brien was there, Dara most definitely was not, and Tom had his arm affectionately around the shoulder of the hostess.

  Ronnie applied herself to chopping the herbs and arranging the spoon of cream. She sprinkled the croutons and laid the six soup tureens on the tray while the hostess, flushed and happy, came to collect it.

  She wouldn’t think about it, it was none of her business, and there was bound to be an explanation. Ronnie knew that the first rule of catering work was not to get involved. People had to be regarded professionally as clients needing a service. She mustn’t get caught up in their lives.

  The dinner party was going well when Ronnie put on her coat quietly and let herself out. She peeped once more through the hatch before she left. Tom O’Brien, jacket off, tie loosened, was leaning back in his chair talking expansively; he felt at home in this house.

  —

  Dara Duffy’s house was full of flowers and she looked very glamorous when Ronnie arrived. She put a finger on her lips.

  “He’s exhausted, poor love,” she said, pointing upstairs to a room where Tom O’Brien must have been sleeping. “He never admits it, of course, but his flight was delayed and everything that could have gone wrong did.”

  Ronnie nodded grimly. She ferried the food in from her little van.

  Together Ronnie and Dara set up the table, the plates here, the napkins, the little plates of hors d’oeuvres, and Dara was pretty and excited like a girl going to her first party, not a successful career woman of thirty-something.

  “I want this to be enjoyable for him, I want him to feel that Dublin is his center,” she confided.

  Ronnie bit her lip and said nothing. She knew she sounded a little ungracious and lacking in response, but perhaps Dara Duffy would put it down to concentration and trying to get the work done properly. Dara was a professional; she knew that work was all-important and Dara must have seen nothing amiss.

  “I’ll let you in on a secret,” she said to Ronnie. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but you are so helpful and supportive, I think of you as a friend already…I’m going to ask him to come and live here.” Dara paused to let the words sink in. Then she went on, “It’s silly his keeping that expensive flat, he never uses it; I went around there last night to make it welcoming for him and it’s like a suite of offices, mail on the floor, no personality. Men are hopeless! There’s an extra room here he can use for an office, and, well, as for everything else…” Her eyes danced with the excitement of having Tom O’Brien live with her. She felt it was in her grasp.

  Ronnie lifted her head from the canapé tray she had been decorating with edible flowers. With the nasturtiums clutched in
her hand she looked at Dara Duffy pleadingly, willing her to have less confidence in this man, a man who had crept back to Dublin to the dinner party and bed of another woman last night.

  But Dara showed no signs of being cautious about this man. If ever there was headlong devotion and trust and confidence, it was here.

  Ronnie looked at her as you might look at a loved sister. She felt that something was telling her not to speak, but speak she did.

  “I’m dying to meet him,” she said. “I saw him briefly last night—he was at this dinner party I did, in Sandymount…” She gave the name of the road and the woman who had held the party. Dara looked at her in amazement.

  “No, it couldn’t have been Tom, he’s only just come back today!”

  He was standing at the door, tall and handsome, fastening his cuff links, at ease with himself, with Dara, with the world. He had heard Ronnie.

  She felt her stomach go cold; his eyes were hard as they looked straight at her.

  “What’s all this?” he asked pleasantly.

  “I was just saying I served your dinner last night,” she said.

  “Not unless you are an Aer Lingus hostess,” he said. “You must forgive me for not remembering everyone—it’s old age, I greatly fear.”

  Ronnie went back into the kitchen, each step like lifting a lead weight. She had seen Dara Duffy’s face, the first doubts and lack of certainty.

  One way or another Dara would never ask her to come to this house again. She had lost the other woman too—no longer could Ronnie be trusted to do a dinner professionally and keep it confidential.

  But worst of all, she wasn’t sure she had done the right thing. Hurt hung in the air with the smell of garlic bread. When Ronnie had begun catering, someone had told her never to make her own mayonnaise, never to serve shellfish without offering an alternative, and always to bring slightly more food than was asked for. Ronnie had followed those instructions to the letter.