by Maeve Binchy
And then on the other side there was that high-flying couple, the Hurleys, who were always being written about in the papers. They had started their own company. They had three children of their own and had adopted others. They had his mother and her father living in a kind of mews. They always seemed to have at least three students of different nationalities living with them and minding the children. You couldn’t ask the Hurleys to take on any more. They’d sicken you with how much they were doing already.
‘I don’t know what we’re going to do,’ Maura heard herself say for the tenth time to James, and saw with alarm that familiar look of irritation cross his face.
‘Everything is a problem these days,’ he said. ‘Most people would jump at this opportunity, all it does for us is create more and more difficulties.’
She knew that this was true. Other people would see it as an excitement, a challenge, an adventure. She was being middle-aged beyond her years to see the summer as another Bad Thing. She must pull herself together. This trip to America was probably the last chance she would have to make her marriage work. They would be together in a new place, sharing everything like they were ten years ago. There would be freedom, there would be time. James wouldn’t work late at the College there, like he did at home. He wouldn’t stop for drinks at the club rather than coming back to her. He wouldn’t invent things to do at weekends to escape the house and the prospect of yet another time mending, fixing and titivating their home.
Maura reminded herself that she was resourceful. That was how she had found James in the beginning, her lecturer in College that everyone had fancied and yet Maura had won. That was how she had found the house. It was good to be hard working and practical. That was what had saved them both when little Jamie had died, a cot death at three months. Maura had planted the garden and bought a young Collie dog. James had always said that she was a tower of strength in those months.
But that had been six years ago and things had changed a lot since then. It wasn’t just the lack of a child. They both knew that. There seemed to be a gulf between them that no amount of shared interest would bridge. There were so many things that they did share already, the house, the garden, the walks with Jessie, and yet there were so many silences. Another child, even if it had come along, would not have cemented them together. James lived more and more in the College, Maura more and more in her office which she didn’t really enjoy but since the work was routine and simple, it gave her plenty of time to think about her home and its constant improvement.
There was something about the frown of impatience on James’s face that made Maura realise the urgency of sorting out the house without any more fuss.
‘Leave it to me,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I’ll think of something. You have enough to do to prepare your lectures.’ The frown went and there was something of the old James.
‘That’s more like it,’ he said. He was very handsome when he smiled. Maura realised with a sudden lurch of feeling that at least three marriages had ended in the College. It had been shock and horror and scandal at the time, but now all those men had settled down happily with their second choice. The furore had died down except in the hearts of the three women who had been left alone. It could happen with James very, very easily—if someone wanted him desperately enough. If Maura was foolish enough to drive him out of the home with her fussing and creating problems where none existed.
She spent the next day on the phone. Did anyone know anyone? And eventually someone did. An old school friend that Maura hadn’t seen for years knew someone called Allie.
‘Is she an Arab?’ Maura asked. The Hurleys had a boy called Ali staying one year.
‘No, it’s short for Alice, I think. She’s a kind of a homesitter.’
‘Is she in an organisation? Does she get paid?’
The friend, a colourless woman called Patsy, said no, Allie was a law unto herself. ‘She’s our age, but you’d think she was years younger. She hasn’t anywhere to live, no real job, she just moves on from place to place minding people’s homes.’
‘Sounds a bit unreliable,’ Maura said disapprovingly.
‘No, she was very good here actually,’ Patsy sounded grudging.
‘And what did she do all day?’
‘I wish I knew, but she had the place in fine shape when we came back from Brussels. Everyone around spoke highly of her.’
There was still something ungiving about Patsy. Maura wondered was she being told the full story about this Allie.
‘You didn’t like her, did you?’ she asked.
Patsy sounded aggrieved. ‘Lord Almighty, Maura, you asked for someone to mind your house, I found you someone. Did I like her? I hardly met her. I only saw her twice before we left and once when we came back. She did everything she said she would, and what more can anyone ask?’
Maura thanked her hastily and took Allie’s present phone number. She was minding an art gallery for someone. It would be lovely to go to a home with a dog and a garden, she said.
‘And two budgies?’ Maura added.
‘Super,’ said Allie.
She sounded eighteen, not thirty-five-ish. When they met her, she looked much nearer to eighteen also.
Allie had long dark curly hair, the kind you knew that she shampooed every morning and just shook it dry. She had a great smile that lit up her whole face. She had long golden legs and arms, and wore what Maura thought was an over-short denim dress.
Allie sat on the grass as she talked to them in the garden. She smiled up at James, and Maura felt a resentment that she had not known possible. Not just at the fact that Allie could sit on the ground without falling over, but at the way she looked at James. It wasn’t flirtatious or coy, it was just a look that was full of interest. Everything he said seemed worthy of consideration. Allie would nod eagerly or shake her head. She was reacting on a very high level. Not for Allie the nods and grunts and half attention that James must have been used to from Maura.
To be fair, and Maura struggled to be fair, Allie seemed very interested in her too. She asked Maura about her job and even James seemed surprised at some of the things he heard about Maura’s daily routine.
‘I didn’t know that,’ he said interested, and Maura realised with a pang that she hardly ever told James anything about work nowadays except to complain about the manager or the difficulty in parking the car or getting any shopping done at lunch hour. Allie had a big red notebook and she wrote their names down neatly, and all contact addresses that she would need. She was practical, too, asking about plumbers and electricians, and the number to phone if she smelled gas. She asked them to be sure and put any silver in the bank and to spend a couple of hours assembling all their private papers and documents and to lock them up somewhere.
‘We don’t need to do that,’ James was smiling that slightly besotted smile that men in their late thirties smile. Maura noticed.
‘Oh, but you do, James,’ Allie was firm. ‘You see, I come from having minded dozens of homes. You haven’t. When you are over in America you’ll suddenly remember that you left something out you’d prefer that nobody else saw. This way you’ll know you didn’t. Also you can’t ask me to pay your dentist’s bill or find your income tax for you if it’s all locked away, so I’m protecting myself too.’
Allie had a marvellous laugh. She threw her head back and laughed like a child. She had perfect teeth, her neck was long and sun tanned.
Maura felt herself patting her hair. She was middle-aged, frumpish and settled, in her tights and shoes beside this lovely leggy thing all canvas shoes and golden limbs. And if Maura noticed it, then you could be sure that James did. Allie asked about relations and friends, she noted their names and numbers. She wrote down that Maura’s sister didn’t like dogs, and that James’s mother didn’t lock doors behind her. She seemed to understand everything in an instant.
Allie told them that she would write every week and give them an update on everything. She took instructions about phone messages a
nd redirection of mail.
‘Well, wasn’t that the direct intervention of God,’ James said when Allie had finally left.
Maura felt that this was both going too far and also ignoring her own part in finding the homesitter.
‘Yes, well, and my friend Patsy!’ she said mulishly.
‘Of course.’ He didn’t care about niceties like this. ‘Isn’t she a treasure? She’s exactly what we want,’ he said happily. ‘I didn’t dream that anyone like that existed.’
A cold hard knot formed in Maura’s stomach. She felt a physical shock, like the feeling you get if you think you’ve swallowed a piece of glass. She realised she must not show her anxiety. ‘Yes, she seems terrific all right.’
‘Aren’t you clever?’ James said.
Maura could feel the back of her neck get cold and clammy. As she sat in her garden she knew in a disembodied way that she would remember this moment forever. She knew the time and the date, and the way she sat on the garden seat with her hand stroking the head of Jessie, the collie dog. Maura knew with a certainty that she had never felt before about anything that Allie was going to bring danger into her life. Real danger, threatening everything she had hoped for. She had often wondered how women behaved once they knew for certain. But then she supposed few women were possessed of the foresight that she had. Other women had to wait for evidence and proof, or a friend whispering that perhaps she ought to know. Or worse still, the husband saying there was something he had to tell her.
Maura wondered, was it better to know so far in advance? Did it give her any advantage over the others? Were there any points to be gained in the game of trying to keep James for herself and resist the siren call of Allie who had already captured his heart?
It wasn’t a question of competing. Maura had thick, fine, fair hair; she couldn’t grow a mop of dark curls to shake around. Her mouth was small, almost pursed, this had once been thought an advantage, but she couldn’t laugh showing all those pearly teeth like Allie did. Maura’s legs and arms were white, not long and golden. If it were a straight fight, Allie would have the sceptre and the crown. It couldn’t be a straight fight.
They saw her once more before they left, the very morning of the departure. She had brought her own sheets, she told them, and they saw them peeping from a huge straw basket.
‘Is that the only luggage you have?’ Maura tried hard to stop her voice sounding like Allie’s mother or her school teacher. Allie dimpled back to her. ‘I’m a gypsy, you see. I don’t need possessions. I use everybody else’s. I’ll watch your television, look at your clocks, listen to your radio, boil your kettle . . . I don’t need to clutter myself up with a lot of things.’
James was listening to this as if it were words from the Book of Revelations. He was also looking at the corner of Allie’s sheets, pretty blue and pink flowers with frilly edges on them. Maura knew that her own dull fitted sheets in white and pink were uninviting by comparison.
It had never been difficult to work out James’s thought processes. They were very simple and direct; they went relentlessly from Point A to Point B.
‘We never asked you, Allie, if there is anyone . . . any friend . . . boy . . . man . . .’ He broke off in confusion.
‘Allie knows she can invite any friend here,’ Maura was crisp.
‘No, I meant . . . you know,’ James looked pathetic, he was dying to know was there anyone. Maura held her breath but not with any hope. What she had felt as she sat on that garden seat had not been a suspicion . . . it had been a foresight. It wasn’t a matter of fearing that this golden girl would destroy Maura’s life. She didn’t just fear it, she knew it.
Allie laughed lightly. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, James,’ she said, ‘I’m between lovers at the moment.’
‘I’m sure that state won’t last very long,’ he was being gallant, arch, idiotic.
‘You’d be surprised,’ the smile was easy. ‘I have to wait for the right man.’
Maura knew that Allie would wait three months. The right man, James, was being taken out of the country temporarily, but she would wait and plot and plan for his return.
She wrote every week, addressing the letters to Maura but this was only a ploy. She talked of long walks on the beach in Killiney throwing the sticks for Jessie, chatting with James’s mother. A remarkable woman for her age, and so interesting about the year she had spent in Africa.
‘Poor Mum, delighted with a new audience,’ James said.
Allie had contacted Maura’s sister, Geraldine.
They had, it seemed, been visiting each other a lot. Maura hoped this didn’t mean that Geraldine would be dropping in at all hours when they got back.
Geraldine had been frightened by a dog when she was young, this was where her fear stemmed from.
‘I didn’t know that,’ James said.
‘Neither did I,’ Maura was grim.
The visit to the Mid-Western campus was a sort of a success. Only a sort of, Maura thought.
There was indeed a chance to get closer, evenings on their own. Walks together. None of the pressure of home, no traffic to cope with or talk about, since they lived in the centre of everything. No duty calls to people, no telephone ringing except kind neighbours asking them to drop by for a barbecue or a drink.
But the week seemed to be spent waiting for Allie’s next letter and analysing the last one.
‘Imagine the Hurleys asking her to dinner,’ James said.
Maura had noted that too. ‘Very kind of them, they’re wonderful at looking after strays,’ she said. It had been a mistake. James frowned.
‘I don’t think you’ll find that they classified our Allie as a stray,’ he said.
Maura hated her being called ‘our Allie’. She also hated hearing in a letter that old Mrs Green was much better now and would be coming home from hospital soon with the new hip.
‘I didn’t know . . .’ James began.
‘I didn’t know she had a hip replacement either,’ Maura said. ‘They keep themselves very much to themselves.’
‘Not any more they don’t,’ James said tersely.
‘Will we send them a card?’ Maura sounded tentative.
‘You were always the one afraid of drawing them on ourselves.’
‘Well, since you’ve been drawn,’ she knew her voice sounded sharp.
‘Up to you,’ he sounded a million miles away. Or a few thousand miles away. Back in that house and garden, in those flowery sheets, on warm terms with the neighbours. Maura felt that cold knot return. Like a flashback in a film she saw herself sitting with a hand on Jessie’s soft velvet fur.
There was a chill in the warm American evening and she gave a little shiver.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, concerned. He would always be kind to her, see that she managed as well as possible in the circumstances. She could see into the future when he would call around once a year to discuss investments, and whether the roof needed to be re-done.
But where would he call. She would not give him the house, she would not walk out and let Allie take over that place she had loved and lavished her heart on for ten years. She would live there alone if need be. Her eyes filled with tears.
‘You seem very tense here,’ he said kindly. ‘If you like we can get away a little earlier. I mean I can cram the lectures together a bit towards the end. Be back sooner.’
‘What about Allie? She thinks she is staying three months.’
‘Oh, she can stay on with us, surely? Until she goes to her next place. She’s not a fusser, our Allie.’
Maura said she didn’t feel a bit tense, she simply loved it here, there was no question of going home early. She knew her smile was small and pinched. Without surgery, she would never have a broad open smile like Allie.
It was a perfect September day when they got home. Maura rang Allie from the airport.
‘How did she sound?’ James was eager.
Maura wanted to say that she sounded like an overgrown schoolgirl,
laughing and welcoming them back and words tumbling over each other. Instead she said that Allie sounded fine, and that she had arranged a few people to come in.
‘That was lovely of her,’ James smiled happily. ‘Friends of hers, is it?’
‘No, friends of ours, I think,’ Maura said.
‘We don’t have that many friends,’ James said absently.
‘Of course we do,’ Maura snapped.
Around them in Dublin airport passengers were being met, embraced and ferried out to cars. Maura and James pushed their trolley of luggage to a taxi ungreeted.
‘We could have been met if we had wanted it,’ Maura said in answer to no question.
On their lawn, Allie had set up a table. She had vases of flowers and jugs of wine. James’s mother was there, helping and feeling as if she was in charge. Geraldine was there with her mute husband Maurice, chatting animatedly to the elderly Mr and Mrs Green and discussing the success of the operation. The Hurleys were there with their extended family. The children all seemed to know Allie well. Maura had to struggle to remember their names, there were so many of them. A couple from across the road whom Maura and James had never met were amongst the crowds milling around.
‘I do hope we aren’t intruding,’ the woman said. ‘But Allie was so insistent, she said you’d love everyone here.’
‘She was utterly right,’ Maura strove to put the warmth and enthusiasm into her voice that she knew was called for.
‘Have a shower, you must be exhausted,’ Allie had thought of everything.
Maura stood under the water while James shaved at the hand basin nearby.
‘What a girl,’ he said at least three times. He was anxious to be back down there joining in the fun. ‘Wasn’t this a smashing idea of hers?’
Maura’s voice was shaky. ‘Great,’ she said hoping the running water covered the sound of a sob. ‘Simply great. You go on down. I’ll be out in a minute.’
She stood in her bedroom and tried to find something that might look festive and happy to wear. She seemed to see only blouses and skirts or matronly dresses that would make her fit into the generation of James’s mother or the Greens. Allie was leaving that afternoon, she would not stay and destroy Maura’s life by taking her husband. Her next job was abroad, minding a farmhouse in the Dordogne.
