by Maeve Binchy
'Great! Well, we have the excuse, all we need is the place and to know how long a lunch break so that I don't make a bad impression on my first day.' His extraordinary smile went from one to the other; they were the only three people in the world.
Ria couldn't say anything; her mouth was too dry.
'If we're out and back in under an hour then I think we'll do well,' said Rosemary.
'So now it's only where?' Danny Lynch said, looking straight at Ria. This time there were only two of them in the world. She still couldn't speak.
'There's an Italian place across the road,' Rosemary said. 'It would cut down on time getting there and back.'
'Let's go there,' said Danny Lynch, without taking his eyes away from Ria Johnson.
Danny was twenty-three. His uncle had been an auctioneer. Well, he had been a bit of everything in a small town, a publican, an undertaker, but he also had an auctioneer's licence and that's where Danny had gone to work when he left school. They had sold grain and fertiliser and hay as well as cattle and small farms, but as Ireland changed, property became important. And then he had gone to Cork City and he loved it all, and now he had just got this job in Dublin .
He was as excited as a child on Christmas Day, and Rosemary and Ria were carried along with him all the way. He said he hated being in the office and loved being out with clients, but then didn't everyone? He knew it would take time before he'd get that kind of freedom in Dublin . He had been to Dublin often but never lived there.
And where was he staying? Rosemary had never seemed so interested in anyone before. Ria watched glumly. Every man in the office would have killed to see the light in the eyes, the interest in every word. She never enquired where any of her other colleagues lived, she didn't seem to know if they had any accommodation at all. But with Danny it was different. 'Tell us now that you don't live miles and miles away, do you?' Rosemary had her head on one side. No man on earth could resist giving Rosemary his address and finding out where she lived too. But Danny didn't seem to regard it as a personal exchange; it was part of the general conversation. He spoke looking from one to the other as he told them how he had fallen on his feet. He had really had the most amazing bit of luck. There was this man he had met, a sort of madman really called Sean O'Brien, old and confused. A real recluse. And he had inherited a great big house in Tara Road, and he wasn't capable of doing it up, and he didn't want all the bother and the discussing of it and all, so what he really wanted was a few fellows to go in and live there. Fellows were easier than girls, they didn't want things neat and clean and organised. He smiled apologetically at them as if to say he knew that fellows were hopeless.
So that's where Danny and two other lads lived. They had a bedsitter each, and kept an eye on the place until poor old Sean decided what he was going to do. Suited everybody.
What kind of a house was it, the girls wanted to know?
Tara Road was very higgledy-piggledy. Big houses with gardens full of trees, small houses facing right on to the street. Number 16 was a great old house, Danny said. Falling down, damp, shabby now. Poor Sean O'Brien's old uncle must have been a bit of a no-hoper like Sean himself, it must have been a great house once. You got a feel for houses, didn't you? Otherwise why be in this business at all?
Ria sat with her chin in her hands listening to Danny and looking at him and looking at him. He was so enthusiastic. The place had a big overrun garden at the back. It was one of those houses that just put out its arms and hugged you.
Rosemary must have kept the conversation going and called for the bill. They walked across the road back to work and Ria sat down at her desk. Things don't happen like this in real life. It's only a crush or an infatuation. He's a perfectly ordinary small guy with a line of chatter. He is exactly like this to everyone else. So why on earth did she feel that he was so special, and that if he got to share all his plans and dreams with anyone else she would kill the other person? This wasn't the kind of way people went on. Then she remembered her sister's wedding two days ago. That wasn't the way people went on either.
Before the office closed Ria went over to Danny Lynch's desk. 'I'm going to be twenty-two tomorrow,' she said. 'I wondered…' Then she got stuck.
He helped her out. 'Are you having a party?'
'Not really, no.'
'Then can we celebrate it together? Today the coat, tomorrow being twenty-two. Who knows what we'll have to celebrate by Wednesday?'
And then Ria knew that it wasn't a crush or an infatuation, it was love. The kind of thing she had only read about, heard about, sung about or seen at the cinema. And it had come to find her in her own office.
At first Ria tried to keep Danny to herself, not wanting to tell anyone about him or to share him with other people. She clung to him when they said goodbye as if she never wanted him to leave her arms.
'You're sending me very funny signals, my Maria,' he said to her. 'You want to be with me and yet you don't. Or am I just a thick man who can't understand?' His head was on one side, looking at her quizzically.
'That's exactly the way I feel,' she said simply. 'Very confused.'
'Well we can simplify it all, can't we?'
'Not really. You see for me it would be a very big step. I don't want to make a production out of it all, but you see I haven't with anyone else. Yet I mean…' She bit her lip. She didn't dare tell him that she wouldn't sleep with him until she knew that he loved her. It would be putting words in his mouth.
Danny Lynch held her face in his hands. I love you, Ria, you are utterly adorable.'
'Do you love me?'
'You know I do.'
The next time he asked her to go back to the big rambling house she would go. But, oddly, he didn't ask her at all in the days and nights that followed. He told her about himself, his time at school where he was picked on because he was small and how his elder brothers taught him to fight. His brothers were in London , both of them. One married, one living with a girl. They didn't come home much. Usually went to Spain or Greece on their holidays now.
His parents lived in the same house as they had always done. They were very self-contained, went for long walks with their red setter. She felt that he didn't get on well with his father, but even though Ria ached to ask she didn't probe. Men hated that kind of intimate chat. She and Rosemary knew this from reading magazine articles and even from their own experience. Fellows didn't like being questioned about feelings. So she did not ask him about his childhood and why he spoke so little of his parents and rarely went to see them.
Danny didn't ask questions about her family, so she forced herself not to prattle about how her father had died when she was eight, how her mother was still bitter and disappointed by the memory of him. And how dull Hilary and Martin's wedding had been.
There was no shortage of things to talk about in those heady days. Danny did ask about what music she liked, and what she read and where she had been on holidays, and what films she went to see, and what kind of houses she liked. He showed her books about houses, and pointed out things that she would never have noticed. He would love to own the old house, Number 16 Tara Road, he told her. He would do it up and take such care of it. He would put so much love into the house that the house would return his love.
It was wonderful having Rosemary to talk to. At first Ria held back. She was so afraid that if Rosemary smiled just once more, Danny would leave Ria's side and join her, but as the days went by she began to have a little more confidence. And then she told Rosemary everything, where they went, what he was interested in, about his strange lonely family in the country.
Rosemary listened with interest. 'You've got it very bad,' she said eventually.
'Do you think it's foolish, just a crush or something? You know a lot about these things.' Ria wished for an oval face and high cheek-bones so desperately it almost hurt.
'He seems to have it just as bad,' Rosemary pronounced.
'He says he loves me, certainly,' Ria said. She was answering Rose
mary's question but she didn't want to sound too confident.
'Of course he loves you, that was obvious the very first day,' Rosemary said, twirling her long blonde hair around her finger. 'It's the most romantic thing I've ever seen. I can't tell you how envious we all are. Total love at first sight and the whole office knows. What nobody knows is are you sleeping with him?'
'No,' said Ria firmly. And then, in a much smaller voice, 'Not yet.'
Ria's mother wondered was she ever going to meet him.
'Soon, Mam. Don't rush things, please.'
I'm not rushing anything, Ria. I'm just pointing out that you have been going out with this fellow every single night, week after week, and common courtesy would suggest that you might invite him home with you once in a while.'
'I will, Mam. Honestly.'
'I mean, Hilary brought Martin back to meet us, didn't she?'
'Oh she did, Mam.'
'So?'
'So, I will.'
'Are you going home for Christmas?' Ria asked Danny.
'Here is home.' He embraced all of Dublin in a gesture.
'Yes, I know. I meant to your parents' home.'
'I don't know yet.'
'Won't they expect you to go back?'
'They'll leave it to me.'
She wanted to ask about his brothers over in England and what kind of a family was it if they didn't all gather around a table for a turkey on Christmas Day. But she knew she must not sound too inquisitive. 'Sure,' she said unconvincingly.
Danny took both her hands in his. 'Listen to me, Ria. It will be different when you and I have a home. It will be a real home, one that people will want to come running back to. That's what I see ahead for us. Don't you?'
'Oh yes, Danny,' she said, with her face glowing. She did understand. The real Danny was a loving person like herself. She was the luckiest woman in the world.
'Ask him for Christmas Day so that we can get a look at him,' her mother begged.
'No, Mam. Thank you, but no.'
'Is he going back down the country to his own people?'
I'm not sure, he's not sure.'
'He sounds a real fly-by-night to me,' her mother sniffed. 'No, Mam, he's not that.'
'Well, a mystery man… he won't even put in an appearance to give the time of day to his girlfriend's family.' 'He will, Mam, when the time comes,' Ria said.
Someone always behaved badly at the office party.
This year it was Orla King, a girl who had drunk half a bottle of vodka before the festivities had even started. She tried to sing, 'In the jungle the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight'.
'Get her out before the top guys see her,' Danny hissed.
It was easier said than done. Ria tried to urge Orla to come with her to the ladies' room.
'Piss off!' was the response.
Danny was there. 'Hey sweetheart, you and I have never danced,' he said.
She looked at him with interest. 'That's true,' she agreed.
'Why don't we go out and dance a bit where there's more room?'
'Yesh,' said the girl, surprised and pleased.
In seconds Danny had her out on the street. Ria brought her coat. The cold fresh air made her feel sick. They directed her to a quiet corner.
'I want to go home,' she cried afterwards.
'Come on, we'll walk you,' Danny said.
Between them they supported her. From time to time Orla tried a chorus of 'The lion sleeps tonight' without much success.
When they let her in the door of her flat she looked at them in surprise. 'How did I get home?' she asked with interest.
'You're fine, sweetheart,' Danny said soothingly.
'Will you come in with me?' Orla ignored Ria entirely.
'No, honey, see you tomorrow,' he said, and they were gone.
'You saved her job, getting her out of there,' Ria said as they walked back to the office party. 'She's such a clown… I hope she knows how much she owes you.'
'She's not a clown, she's just young and lonely,' he said.
Ria got a stab of jealousy as sharp as a real pain. Orla was eighteen and pretty; even drunk and with a tear-stained face she looked well. Suppose Danny was attracted to her? No, don't suppose that.
Back at the party they hadn't been missed. 'That was very smart of you, Danny,' Rosemary said with approval. 'And even smarter, you missed the speeches.'
'Anything we should know?'
'Oh, that we had a profitable year and there would be a bonus. Onwards and upwards sort of thing.'
Rosemary looked magnificent, with her blonde hair swept up in a jewelled comb, a white satin blouse, tight black skirt and those long slim legs. For the second time that evening Ria felt a pang of envy. She was dumpy and fuzzy-looking. How could she keep a man as gorgeous as Danny Lynch? She was foolish even to try.
He whispered in her ear, 'Let's circulate, talk to the suits for a bit and then get away.'
She watched him joke easily with the senior figures in the agency, nod respectfully to the managing director, listen courteously to their wives. Danny had only been there a matter of weeks. Already they liked him and thought he would do well.
'I'm getting the Christmas Eve bus tomorrow.'
'I'm sure it'll be nice, lots of returned emigrants and everything,' she said.
'I’ll miss you,' he said.
'Me too.'
'I’ll hitch-hike back the day after Christmas… there's no buses.'
'That's great.'
'I wonder could I come and see you at home and, you know, meet your mother maybe?'
He was asking, she hadn't dragged him or forced him.
'That would be great. Come and have lunch with us on the Tuesday.' All she had to do now was force herself not to be ashamed of her mother and her sister and her dreary brother-in-law.
It wasn't a military inspection on Tuesday. It was only lunch. They were going to have soup and sandwiches.
Ria tried to see their home through Danny's eyes. It was not the kind of place where he would have liked to live, a corner house in a long road of the big estate. He's coming to see me not the house, she told herself. Her mother said she hoped he wouldn't stay after three because there was a great movie starting on the television then. Ria gritted her teeth and said no, indeed, she was sure that he wouldn't.
Hilary said she was sure he was used to fancier meals but he'd have to put up with this like anyone else. With a huge effort Ria said that he would be delighted to put up with it. Martin read the paper and didn't look up at all.
She wondered would Danny bring a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates or a plant. Or maybe nothing at all. Three times she changed her dress. That was too smart, this was too dowdy. She was struggling into the third outfit when she heard the doorbell ring.
He had arrived.
'Hallo Nora, I'm Danny,' she heard him say. Oh God, he was calling her mother by her first name. Martin always called her Mrs J. Mam would just hate this.
But she heard in her mother's voice the kind of pleased response that Danny always got. 'You're very, very welcome,' she said, in a tone that hadn't been used in that house for as long as Ria could remember.
And the magic worked with Hilary and Martin too. Eager to hear about their wedding, interested in the school where they worked, relaxed and easy-going. Ria watched the whole thing with amazement.
And he had brought no wine, chocolates or flowers. Instead he gave them a game of Trivial Pursuit. Ria's heart sank when she saw it. This was not a family where games were played. But she had reckoned without Danny. Their heads were bent over the questions. Nora knew all the ones about film stars and Martin shone in general knowledge.
'What hope have I against a teacher?' Danny groaned in despair.
He said he was leaving long before they wanted him to go. 'Ria promised to come and see the place I live,' he said apologetically. I want us to go while there's still light.'
'He's gorgeous,' Hilary whispered.
'Very nice man
ners,' her mother hissed.
And then they were free.
'That was a lovely lunch,' Danny said as they waited for the bus to Tara Road. And that was all he would say. There would be no analysis, no defining. Men like Danny were straightforward and not complicated.
And then they were there. And they stood together in the overgrown front garden and looked up at the house in Tara Road.
'Look at the shape of the house,' Danny begged her. 'See how perfect the proportions are. It was built in 1870, a gentleman's residence.' The steps up to the hall door were huge blocks of granite. 'Look how even they were, they were perfectly matched.' The bow windows had all the original woodwork. 'Those shutters are over a hundred years old. The leaded glass over the door has no cracks in it. This house was a jewel,' Danny Lynch said.
There he was living in it, well, more or less camping in a room in it.
'Let's remember today, the first day that we walked together into this house,' he said. His eyes were bright. He was just as sentimental and romantic as she was in so many ways. He was about to open the peeling front door with his key and paused to kiss her. 'This will be our home, Ria, won't it? Tell me you love it too.' He meant it. He wanted to marry her. Danny Lynch, a man who could have any woman. And he meant he was going to own a huge house like this. A boy of twenty-three with no assets. Only rich people could buy houses like this, even one in such poor repair.
Ria didn't want to pour cold water on his dreams, and particularly she didn't want to sound too like her sister Hilary with her new obsession with the cost of everything. But this was fantasy. 'It's not possible to own a place like this surely?' she said.
'When you come in and see it you'll know this is where we are going to live. And we'll find a way to buy it.' He talked her through the hallway with its high ceiling. He pointed out the original mouldings on the ceiling to take her eyes off the bicycles clogging the hallway. He showed her the gentle curve of the stairs, and made no mention of the rotting floorboards. They passed the big room with its folding doors. They couldn't go into it. Sean O'Brien, the eccentric landlord, was using it as some kind of storeroom for giant-size containers.