by Maeve Binchy
“I’ll catch you at one of those rendezvous then,” he said, loftily, refusing to let his pique be seen.
Nan’s room became her living quarters. She had an electric kettle there and two mugs. She took her tea with lemon, so there was no need for milk or sugar.
Sometimes her mother came in and sat with her.
“It’s peaceful in here,” Emily said.
“That’s why I wanted it this way.”
“He’s still annoyed.” Nan’s mother sounded as if she were about to plead.
“He has no reason to be Em, I am perfectly polite always. He’s the one who uses the language and loses control of himself.”
“Ah, if only you understood.”
“I do. I understand that he can be two different people. I don’t have to be dependent on his moods. So I won’t be. I won’t sit down there wondering when he’ll come home and what condition he’ll be in.”
There was a silence.
“Neither do you, Em,” Nan said at last.
“It’s easy for you. You’re young and beautiful. You’ve the world ahead of you.”
“Em, you’re only forty-two. You’ve a lot of the world ahead of you.”
“Not as a runaway wife, I wouldn’t.”
“And anyway you don’t want to run away,” Nan said.
“I want you to be away from it.”
“I will be, Em.”
“You don’t go out with any young men. You never go out on dates.”
“I’m waiting.”
“What for?”
“For the Prince, the white knight, the Lord, or whatever it was you said would come.”
Emily looked at her daughter, alarmed.
“You know what I meant. Something much better than here. Something far above Maple Gardens. You meet people amongst your friends, these law students, these young engineers … these boys with fathers who have big positions.”
“That’s only the same as Maple Gardens, except a bit more garden and a downstairs cloakroom.”
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t held on to this dream just to end up in another Maple Gardens, Em, with another nice fellow who’d turn out to be a drinker like Dad.”
“Hush, don’t say that.”
“You asked me. I told you.”
“Yes, I know. But what do you hope to get?”
“What you told me I’d get, anything I wanted.”
She looked so proud and confident sitting there at her desk, her mug of tea in her hand, her blond hair back from her brow, her face unruffled by the kind of conversation they were having.
“You could too.” Emily felt the belief she had always held in her heart soar back again.
“So there’s no point in going out with the people I don’t want to live amongst. It’s only a waste of time.”
Emily shivered. “There could be some very, very nice people in all that number.”
“There could, but not what you and I want.”
Emily’s glance fell on the desk and amongst Nan’s books and files were magazines, The Social and Personal, The Tatler, Harper and Queens. There were even books of etiquette borrowed from the library. Nan Mahon was studying a great deal more than First Arts.
Mrs. Healy looked through the thick net curtains and saw Simon Westward getting out of his car. He had his small stocky sister with him. Perhaps he was going to take her into the hotel for a lemonade. Mrs. Healy had long admired the young Squire as she called him. Indeed she had half harbored some little notions about him. He was a man of around thirty, within a few years of her own age.
She was a fine substantial widow in the town, a person of impeccable reputation. Not exactly his social class of course, and not the right religion. But Mrs. Healy was a practical woman. She knew that when people were as broke as the Westwards would appear to be, a lot of the old standards might not be as firm as they used to be.
She knew that Simon Westward owed Shea’s since last Christmas for the drink he had bought to cover the hunt and what they called the Boxing Day party. Many a traveler came and had a drink in Healy’s Hotel and spoke indiscreetly because he would have thought that the lofty and distant landlady had not the remotest interest in the tittle-tattle of the neighborhood.
In most cases they would have been correct, but in terms of the Westwards, Mrs. Healy had always been interested. She had grown up in England where the Big House had always been much more a part of the town. It had never ceased to amaze her that back home again in her native land, it appeared that nobody knew or cared about the doings up at Westlands.
To her disappointment the Westwards went into Hogan’s Gentleman’s Outfitters across the road.
What could they want there? Surely they would deal in Callaghan’s up in Dublin, or Elvery’s. But perhaps credit had run out in those places. Maybe they were going to try locally where a man as nice as Eddie Hogan would never ask to see the color of their money before lifting the bale of material down from the shelf and starting to write the measurements into his book.
From the inside of his dark shop, peering through his dark window with its bales of materials and its shutters that never fully opened, Eddie Hogan saw with delight that Simon Westward and his small sister were coming into the premises. He wished he had time to smarten the place up.
“You’ll never guess …” he began to whisper at Sean.
“I know,” Sean Walsh answered back.
“It’s very dark,” Heather complained, screwing up her eyes to get used to the change from the bright winter sunshine outside.
“Shush.” Her brother didn’t want her to seem rude.
“This is an honor,” Eddie Hogan said.
“Ah, good morning, Mr.… Hogan, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is,” Heather said. “It’s written outside.”
Simon looked annoyed; Heather immediately became repentant.
“Sorry,” she muttered, looking at the ground.
“It is indeed Edward Hogan at your service and this is my assistant, Sean Walsh.”
“How do you do, Mr. Walsh.”
“Mr. Westward.” Sean bowed slightly.
“I’m afraid after all that, it’s only something rather small. Heather wants to buy a present for my grandfather. It’s his birthday. Just a token.”
“Ah yes. Might I suggest some linen handkerchiefs.” Eddie Hogan began to produce boxes of them, and open a drawer where they were stocked singly.
“He’s got more hankies than he knows what to do with,” Heather explained. “And he’s not great at blowing his nose anyway.”
“A scarf, maybe?” Eddie Hogan was desperate to please.
“He doesn’t go out, you see. He’s very, very old.”
“It’s a puzzler all right.” Eddie scratched his head.
“I thought you might have some sort of geegaws,” Simon said, smiling from one man to the other. “It doesn’t really matter what. Grandfather isn’t really in a position to appreciate anything … but … you know.” With a flick of his head he indicated Heather, who was prowling earnestly around the shop.
Eddie Hogan had now ventured into the whole problem. “Might I suggest Miss Westward, if it’s something just to give your grandfather a feeling of pleasure that you remembered him and marked his birthday, you might think in terms of sweets, rather than clothing.”
“Yes.” Heather was doubtful.
“I know I may appear to be turning business away, but we want to think of what’s best for everyone. A little box of jellies possibly. Birdie Mac would wrap it up nicely and you could get a card.”
Simon looked at him with interest. “Yes, that’s probably much more sensible. Silly of us not to see it. Thanks.”
He must have seen the look of naked disappointment on Eddie Hogan’s face. “Sorry to have bothered you Mr. Hogan, wasting your time and everything.”
Eddie stopped and eagerly looked back at the small dark confident young man.
“It was an honor, as I said, Mr. Westward,�
� he said foolishly. “And maybe now that you’ve been in our place you’ll come back again.”
“Oh, undoubtedly.” Simon held the door open for his sister and escaped.
“That was very clever of you, Mr. Hogan,” Sean Walsh said approvingly. “Putting him under a compliment to us.”
“I was only trying to think of a present for the little girl to give her grandfather,” Eddie Hogan said.
Thursday arrived. Benny looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She stared long and hard. There was a possibility that she had lost some weight around her shoulders. Only a possibility, and even if it were true what a useless place to lose it.
She had washed her hair the night before and it looked nice and shiny. The skirt that Peggy Pine had said might crush, did indeed crush. It looked awful. But it was a lovely blue color, not like all the sensible navy and browns that she had worn like a school uniform. The kinds of colors that wouldn’t draw attention to you. The blouse looked a bit raggy too, not like the heavy ones she normally wore. But it was much more feminine. If she were sitting across a table from a gorgeous man like Jack Foley he would have nothing to look at except her top. She had to have something fancy, not look as if she was a governess or a school prefect.
Her heart soared and plummeted a dozen times as she dressed. He had been so easy and natural that day he was here in Knockglen. But in College it was different. You always heard people talking about him as if he were some kind of Greek god. Even real Holy Marys in her class who spoke of him. These were girls with straight hair, and glasses and shabby cardigans who worked harder than the nuns and seemed to have no time for fellows or a social life, even those kinds of girls knew of Jack Foley.
And he was asking her out today. She’d love to tell Rosemary. She would really adore to see her face. And lots of them, she’d love to go up to Carroll’s shop now and kick on the door and tell horrible Maire Carroll who used to call her names at school how well things were turning out. Maire who didn’t get called to the Training College like she had thought, and was sulking in her parents’ grocery shop, while Benny would be having lunch in the Dolphin with Jack Foley.
Benny folded the flimsy blouse up and put it in her big shoulder bag. She also put in a small tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush, her mother’s Blue Grass talcum powder, which she would say she had borrowed by mistake if it were noticed. It was seven thirty-five. In six hours time she would be sitting opposite him. Please God may she not talk too much and say stupid things that she’d regret. And if she did say stupid things let her remember not to give a great laugh after them.
She felt a flicker of guilt that she hadn’t told Eve about the outing. It was the first time she had kept anything from her friend. But there hadn’t been time, and she was afraid that Eve would tell Nan—there was no reason not to after all. And Nan would have been great and lent her a nice handbag or a pair of earrings to match her skirt. But she didn’t want it all planned and set up. She wanted to do it on her own, and be herself. Or sort of herself. Benny smiled wryly at her reflection. It wasn’t exactly her own ordinary self that would walk into the Dolphin in six hours time. It was a starved, overpolished shiny Benny who hadn’t given one minute’s thought to her books for the last ten days.
“I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong with the porridge, Benny.” Patsy was on her own in the kitchen when Benny came down.
“Nothing Patsy, I swear.”
“It’s just that if ever I married I’d want to be able to put a decent pot of porridge for a man and his mother on the stove.”
“His mother?”
“Well, I’d have to marry in somewhere wouldn’t I? I’ve nowhere for anyone to marry into.”
“Do you fancy anyone, Patsy?”
“Divil a point in yourself or myself fancying anyone. I haven’t a penny to bless myself with, and you’d have to be sure he’d be a grand big ox of a fellow the size of yourself,” said Patsy cheerfully.
Somehow the morning passed. Benny skipped her twelve o’clock lecture. She didn’t want to have to run through the Green, down Grafton Street and round by the Bank of Ireland in order to be in the Dolphin at one-fifteen. She would be able to do it, but she didn’t want to arrive flushed and panting. She would walk down slowly and take her ease. Then at the last moment she would change somewhere nearby in the ladies’ cloakroom of a pub or a coffee shop and put on more talcum powder and brush her teeth. She would look so relaxed and unfussed.
She pitied the people she saw as she walked slowly through the Dublin streets. They looked gray and harassed. They had their heads down against the wind that blew instead of holding themselves high and facing it as Benny did. They were all going to have dull ordinary things at lunch. Either they would go home on a bus to a house where the radio would be on and children were crying, or they would queue up for a meal in a city restaurant where it would be crowded and the smell of other people’s dinners would be unattractive.
She checked herself finally, and decided she was as good as she could be. She should of course have started the diet much earlier. Like maybe three years ago. But there was no point in crying over that.
She had been big and fat when he had met her in Knockglen only a couple of weeks ago. It hadn’t stopped him asking her out to a place like this. She looked up at the Dolphin unbelievingly. He hadn’t said which part. She knew his letter off by heart. But he must mean the hall.
There were three men in the entrance. None of them was Jack. They were much older. They were wealthy-looking, possibly people who went racing.
She saw with the shock that comes with recognition that one of them was Simon Westward.
“Oh, hallo,” said Benny, forgetting she didn’t actually know him, just all about him from Eve.
“Hallo.” He was polite but mystified.
“Oh, Benny Hogan, from the shop in Knockglen.”
She spoke naturally, with no resentment at not being recognized. Simon’s smile was warm now.
“I was in your father’s shop yesterday.”
“He told me. With your little sister.”
“Yes, he’s a very courteous man, your father. And his assistant …?”
“Oh, yes.” Benny wasn’t enthusiastic.
“Not the same type of person?”
“Not at all, but you couldn’t tell my father that. He thinks he’s fine.”
“No boys in the family to help him run it?”
“No, only me.”
“And do you live in Dublin?”
“Oh, I wish I did. No, I go up and down every day.”
“It must be exhausting. Do you drive?”
Simon lived in a different world Benny decided.
“Only on the bus,” she said.
“Still it makes it a bit better if you can have nice lunches in a place like this …” He looked around him approvingly.
“This is the first time I’ve been here. I said I’d meet someone. Do you think I should wait in the hall?”
“The bar, I think,” he said, pointing.
Benny thanked him and went in. It was crowded but she saw him immediately over in a corner … he was waving.
“There she is!” Jack cried. “Now we’re all complete.”
He was standing up smiling at her, from the middle of a group of seven people. It wasn’t a date. It was a party. There were to be eight people. And one of them was Rosemary Ryan.
Benny didn’t really remember much about the part before they went into the dining room. She felt dizzy, partly with the shock and partly with the lack of food over the past few days. She looked wildly to see what the others were drinking. Some of them had glasses of Club Orange, but it could have been gin and orange. The boys had glasses of beer.
“I’d like one of those.” She pointed weakly to a beer glass.
“Good old Benny, one of the lads,” said Bill Dunne, a boy she had always liked before. Now she would have liked to pick up the heavy glass ashtray and beat him over the head with it until she was perfec
tly sure he was dead.
They were all chatting easily and happily. Benny’s eyes raked the other girls. Rosemary was as usual looking as if she had come out from under the hair dryer and hours of ministration in the poshest place in Dublin. Her makeup was perfect. She smiled at everyone admiringly. Carmel was small and pretty. She had been going out with her boyfriend Sean since they were sixteen or maybe even fifteen. They were known as the College’s Perfect Romance. Sean looked at Carmel with adoration and she listened to every word he said as if it were a pronouncement. Carmel was no threat. She would have eyes for nobody, not even Jack Foley.
Aidan Lynch, the long, lanky fellow who had taken Eve to the pictures, was there too. Benny breathed a prayer of relief that she had told nobody about what she had thought was her date. How foolish she would have felt had the story got around. But of course Aidan would tell Eve that Benny was there, and Eve might very reasonably wonder why nothing had been mentioned. She felt cross and hurt and confused.
The other girl was called Sheila. She was a law student. A pale sort of girl, Benny thought, looking at her savagely; pale and rather dull-featured. But she was small. God, she was small. She had to look up at Jack Foley, not over at him like Benny did. She remembered Patsy talking about her needing a big ox of a man. She willed the tears back into her eyes.
None of them had ever been there before. It was all Jack’s great plan they said … a scheme that would make them well-known, highly respected personages here by the time they qualified. Lots of lawyers and a lot of racing people met there. The thing to do was to establish yourself as a regular.
The words of the menu swam in front of Benny. She was going to eat real food for the first time in ten days. She knew it would choke her.
She was sitting between Aidan Lynch and the wordless Sean when the final seating arrangements had been made. Jack Foley was between Rosemary and Sheila across the table from her. He looked boyish and pleased, delighted with his notion of getting the four boys to pay for a smart lunch in a place like this.
The others were pleased with him too.
“I must say you went out and plucked the best of the bunch for us to be seen with,” Aidan Lynch said extravagantly.