by Maeve Binchy
She smiled at him weakly. Would the time ever be right to tell him how wearying and exhausting she found these weekends, with the constant running to keep up.
It was only ten thirty and she could barely keep her eyes open.
Dan looked at her affectionately.
‘You’re thinking of your bed, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Well, I was a bit.’
‘And so was I. Maybe tonight is the night we make our son and heir?’ he suggested.
Amy had been down this road so often.
She didn’t want another child; her family was reared. Her job at school would be impossible if there was another baby at this stage. Sophie and Sasha at ten and eight couldn’t cope with another person to take attention away from them.
But it was the one area where Dan Moran had not been successful. He had not yet produced a son. And he wasn’t about to stop trying.
Amy left him to douse the fire and turn off the lights.
She went to the bathroom and very deliberately unzipped her sponge bag. From an inner pocket wrapped carefully Amy took her contraceptive pills.
Looking at the reflection of her tired face with the dark lines below her eyes in the mirror, Amy took the tablet from the day marked Friday and swallowed it with a glass of water.
She was into the day before she had woken up properly. Sophie brought the phone into the bedroom. ‘It’s Joan. She wants to know what to bring. I told her nothing but she insists on talking to you.’
‘Thanks, Sophie. Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s out chopping wood.’ Sophie skipped off to join him.
‘Joan, you’re so good to ring. There is something I’d love, fresh tarragon.’
‘Were you asleep, Amy? Tut tut!’
‘What do you mean asleep? Aren’t I firing on all cylinders?’
‘No, you’re yawning and slurring and you are barely awake. Lord how lucky you are.’
‘Don’t get me started on how lucky I am.’
‘Well I don’t envy you that lunch party for one thing, but at least we’ll be there to hold your hands if it goes pear shaped.’
‘Why should it go pear shaped? It’s a barbecue, for God’s sake, all I have to do is potatoes and salads and starters and desserts. Dan has his brand new apron with “SuperChef” written on it.’
‘I didn’t mean the food,’ Joan said.
‘What did you mean then?’ Amy was totally awake now.
‘The guest list, Amy, it’s fairly heavy.’
‘Dan is certainly up to high doh about it all right.’
‘Well, of course he is, everything’s riding on it,’ Joan said. ‘But you’ll do it beautifully. You always do.’
Troubled, Amy got up and had her shower.
What did it mean the guest list was heavy?
Kevin, their best man, and his wife Geraldine were coming, Dan’s new bank manager who was called Declan and according to Dan was a little pussy cat who kept flinging more money at them. Mr Hayes who was the senior partner in their firm of solicitors, some old friend of Dan Martin and Kevin called Sally Anne, who had gone to America but was now back and looking up all old contacts. And Amy’s cousin Donal, who was a journalist. Okay it might be an effort but no more heavy than any Sunday lunch at Golden Willow.
‘There you are!’ Dan cried when Amy joined them at the wood chopping.
He made it sound as if she had slept in until lunchtime.
Amy noticed to her annoyance that he had brought out the chocolate shortbread she had bought for the after-Sunday-lunch coffee.
‘Anyone for breakfast?’ she said brightly.
‘No, darling, don’t fuss about breakfast. The girls are going to help me tidy up the place and make Golden Willow look respectable for our guests. I thought we’d have a picnic on the river bank.’
‘A picnic!’ Sophie and Sasha were delighted.
‘Yes, that’s a great idea. I have to go in to Knockglass to do a few things so I’ll leave you all to it.’
‘Oh, Mummy,’ Sophie showed her disappointment.
‘You’re ALWAYS rushing round doing things!’ Sasha was disapproving.
Amy made a plate of sandwiches and covered them with cling film. She put a label on them, ‘For Martin and Joan when they arrive.’ Then she got the car keys and drove off.
She felt a great sense of anxiety. Last night in the car she had realised for the very first time that Dan was dangerously unstable about his pride in possessions, and now she was even more anxious after her conversation with the normally level-headed Joan. Why was this lunch tomorrow something that they needed their hands held over?
She sighed and realised it would all become apparent soon enough. But now she had time to go and see her aunt properly and to shop at some leisure.
Norah was doing a Sudoku puzzle when Amy came in. She was seated in her wheelchair at a table and was completely absorbed.
‘I think you’re marvellous to do those. Were you good at maths at school?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with maths. Let me show you—it’s a great thing to take your mind off other things.’ Norah was about to get out a fresh puzzle.
‘God, Norah, I can’t take my eye off the ball for two minutes. I don’t have time to do anything as it is. I’d better not learn anything new from now on,’ Amy laughed.
‘That would be a sad way to be.’
‘Sometimes it is a sad way to be.’ Amy very rarely let this side of her show.
‘Tell me about it.’
‘No, I won’t, I should be shot for whingeing. When I think of all that you have to worry about and we never hear a word out of you.’
‘I haven’t much to complain about, Amy. I suppose I regret that man I fancied for so long never even looked at me, and that I didn’t travel more, or have children and that my legs sort of packed up. But honestly that’s all.’
Amy was too moved by this casual listing of tragedies to be able to speak.
Norah busied herself making tea for them with her tiny teapot beside her on a trolley.
Then Amy said, ‘I have it all, Norah, the man, the children, the clothes, the travel, two houses no less, a huge car and I’ve still got the use of my legs but . . .’
‘But what, love . . . ?’
‘But I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’d tell you if I did know.
Truly I would.’
‘You’re tired, that’s all. You do too much.’
‘It only seems the other day you were telling me I didn’t do enough.’
‘That’s because you were in a dream world then, no mother, no father to speak of, I was afraid you’d end up having no future as well, that’s why I kept you at your books.’
‘I must have inherited it from you, I’m the demon at home, constantly dragging the girls away from whatever they’re doing and sitting them down with their homework.’
‘Oh, the world will be totally different for them than it was for you.’
‘I’m not sure. I think they’ll have worse problems. Growing up with everything and having to get used to less.’
‘But there’s no question of that, surely?’
‘There has to be a question of it, Norah, this whole thing can’t last forever, they’re not going to be little rich girls with credit cards. They’ll have to be able to earn a living.’
‘Well, of course, but that won’t be for ages . . .’
‘When I bring the matter up, Dan is down on me like a ton of bricks. It’s as if I wanted to send them up a chimney as sweeps. Can’t I let them have a childhood, he asks and here I am, monster mother and fussing wife. I’m meant to go along with this make-believe that the economy is booming and there’s money to burn and we must spend, spend, spend.’
Norah looked at her, puzzled.
‘But the place is booming, Amy. Look at this home, for example. Almost everyone who works here is from a foreign land. They come here to us to look for a living as we used to go to faraway places. Look, I have a big m
ap of Europe so they can show me where they come from: Lithuania, Croatia, lots of lovely Polish girls.’
‘That’s not the point.’ Amy looked at the map where her aunt had put in little stickers to show where the staff were from. Not many people would bother doing that.
‘Why not? They all knew there was work here, hope here. That’s why they came. Why can’t you feel like that?’
‘Because those kids who come to Ireland save their money, Norah. I know them. Two of them help me in the house at home. They work as cleaners in the school, they work in bars and they send some of their wages back home and they put the rest in an account here so they can get a flat. They’re not throwing it away on handbags that cost the deposit on a house or building a billiard room.’
‘This is what it’s all about.’ Norah had identified it at last. ‘It’s about poor Dan’s little treat to himself.’
‘It’s about poor Dan’s head being in the sand. It’s about poor Dan not being willing to accept that when you’re in a hole you stop digging.’
‘But seriously, Amy, he’s a financial adviser, an expert. People flock to him, he’s good at it. He must know what he’s doing.’
‘I’m worried sick about it all. He won’t talk, he won’t listen. It’s all a game to him. And it’s not as if he was actually doing anything. He and his partners just push money like counters round a Monopoly board. It’s not as if he was a craftsman who made a beautiful chair, or as if he taught kids for a living or he was a doctor or a nurse. It’s all a bloody game where at the end of the day they drink a bottle of Bolly to celebrate some counter falling on the right square.’
Norah spoke quietly.
‘You knew what he did for a living when you married him, it’s not as if he told you he was going to be a musician composing symphonies or a shepherd finding lost sheep up in the mountains. You can’t suddenly say you were cheated.’
‘No, I know that. But I wish things were different.’
‘Then make them different.’ To Norah it was simple.
‘How? In the name of God, how? The only time we have to talk about it is down here and then he fills the house up with people to make sure we don’t get a chance to talk.’
‘I didn’t say talk about change, just change things,’ Norah said.
‘How do I do that?’
‘Well, I don’t imagine you tell Dan every single thing you do.’ Norah’s pale blue eyes looked as if they could see into Amy’s soul.
‘What do you mean exactly?’
‘Since we are being so honest, I’ll tell you. I think you’re taking the contraceptive pill and Dan doesn’t know about it.’
‘What makes you think that?’ Amy hoped she had put enough shock and outrage into her voice.
‘The fact that Dan said to me on his last visit that he hoped you might have another baby, a boy this time, and when I mentioned it to you, you said, “No way, José!”
‘And this made you think . . . ?’
‘I’m right aren’t I?’
‘Don’t think that my having another baby would solve everything, Norah, it would make him worse. More chances to spend, to show off.’
‘You are overtired,’ Norah said.
‘So why ask me to do something? Ask me to change things? If I’m so tired maybe I should just go to sleep for a few weeks and hope it will have got better when I wake up.’
‘There’s a teaching job going here in Knockglass. They’d love you at the school. Local girl comes home to her own place.’
‘I can’t, Norah. Our life has to be in town.’
‘You don’t sound as if you enjoy it. Each week there’s always more complaints about the traffic, the shopping, driving the girls to this place and that and having to dress up and go to receptions and gallery openings and the lot.’
‘God, I sound a complete pain in the arse.’ Amy was penitent.
‘Think about the school here, Amy, it’s very good, and it might be just what Sophie and Sasha need. And then Dan could get a smaller place in the city and come down here at weekends.’
Amy laughed. ‘You have no idea, Norah. If I even mentioned such an idea he would have laughed and changed the subject.’
‘That’s not much of a partnership then.’
‘You’ve said it!’
‘But of course you’re not helping from your side either. It’s not fair to let him think that he might be going to be a father again if he isn’t.’ Norah shook her head
‘I know. I know,’ Amy said.
And then they just held each other’s hands for a little to show that no offence had been given or taken and everything would go on the way it had been going.
Amy went round Knockglass marvelling at the signs of prosperity: the boutique, the new frontage of the video shop, the café with little tables on the street, particularly the new organic food shop where she bought new potatoes, asparagus and some very healthy-looking bread full of nuts and seeds.
‘That will have you chirruping like a canary,’ said the man who ran the shop. He said his name was Larry and he thought that there was a great demand for this kind of produce now.
‘Are you one of the second homers?’ he asked. He had a square face but unusual green eyes. There was probably a Mrs Larry in the back wearing a long floral skirt and with her hair in a bandanna. Not quite New Age but nearly.
‘I’m from here originally,’ Amy said, avoiding the question.
‘Oh, well that’s all right then!’ he laughed. She didn’t like the exchange but she couldn’t fault him.
Still, it wasn’t the way she saw herself, being forgiven for having a second home.
Back at Golden Willow she could hear the screams of pleasure before she had parked the car. Dan had given the girls a new fishing rod each and was showing them how to cast.
He was also urging them to be quiet so as not to alert the fish of their presence but he might as well have been asking the river to reverse its direction. Amy leaned against the big old tree and wondered how much the fishing gear had cost. When she was young they had gone to the riverbank with little fishing nets or sometimes a bent safety pin on a string. It had seemed a fairer struggle against the fish, in a way. But that was silly and she must not blame Dan for being a good, loving father. She heaved all her bags of vegetables and bread into the kitchen where she discovered that Dan had brought out her expensive runny cheese and jar of black olives for the picnic on the riverbank.
That had all been intended for tomorrow’s big lunch.
If she mentioned it he would say she was fussing; if she didn’t, he would say tomorrow that she had nothing to do except put a meal on the table and she was skimping on things.
She wished they would all come in and help her. A meal for six tonight and this monstrous lunch party tomorrow. But they were having too much fun. She watched them enviously from the kitchen window. Best to put all this stuff away now and start the chicken tarragon.
She looked over at the corner where children’s essays poked out of her big canvas schoolbag. No hope of any time to mark them, of course. Like every weekend.
Joan and Martin came just as she had the kitchen clear and had produced tomato sandwiches covered with a damp cloth. The children had seen the car arrive and they came running. They hadn’t come back from the riverbank when Amy returned. Possibly they knew they would have been pressed into some kind of kitchen work. Why not stay with the loving, laughing father whom they hardly saw all week, the dad who never mentioned homework or saving up for things.
Joan had brought them a book about identifying birds, and a small nesting box each. The girls were delighted and went off to find suitable places to fix them on the trees.
Dan was delighted to see them too.
‘Lord is she feeding you tomato sandwiches and tea! You want a proper drink and some nice Spanish olives,’ he cried.
‘No, Dan you are wrong for once,’ Martin said. ‘Hold the drink till later.’
Joan agreed with him. ‘For th
e last ten kilometres we have been dreaming of tea and tomato sandwiches, and we knew the Golden Couple at Golden Willow would have them for us.’
They sat and talked easily, they were good guests. Joan would help with tomorrow’s lunch and Martin went back a long way with Dan to when they and Kevin were all at school at the Brothers.
Martin had not done as well in life as Kevin and Dan but that never mattered. He and Joan had no children but that never seemed to matter either. They were both marvellous with Amy and Dan’s children and Kevin and Geraldine’s.
The girls dragged Martin out to show him the fish they had caught and then Dan took him on a tour of the new billiard room while Joan and Amy sat companionably at the kitchen table, sighing over the eaten cheese and olives and finding alternatives. It had been like this for ever, Amy making light of their wealth and possessions, Joan showing no envy but genuine delight in all the new appliances that had begun to line the kitchen: the huge American-style fridge/ freezer, the espresso machine and the big juicer for smoothies. Joan stroked them admiringly, and then sat down to peel potatoes for tomorrow’s potato salad. She was a comforting, easy person. And she had a huge admiration for her hard-working husband Martin who with his nephew had two gleaming Mercedes cars. They wore chauffeurs’ uniforms and spent most of their time delivering or collecting executives from Dublin airport. Martin wore a chauffeur’s hat and gloves. He said that if the punters liked those kinds of trimmings why not give them what they wanted? And Joan thought he was quite right. Anyway, it saved his real clothes for leisure time, Joan would say cheerfully.
Amy wished that she had such an easy companionship with Dan. This Golden Couple bit was role-playing. There wasn’t anything golden about a pair who couldn’t or wouldn’t find time to talk to each other and whose every conversation seemed to open a wider chasm between them.
She shivered slightly and of course Joan noticed.
‘Have you a touch of flu?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘A touch of fatigue more like it. We don’t need these people tomorrow, Joan. Why does he ask them? Why couldn’t it just be just the four of us? Maybe Kevin and Geraldine too—then we could really relax instead of impress, impress, impress.’
