by Maeve Binchy
Faithless pig, Benny thought to herself, remembering that he had sworn such undying devotion to Eve Malone earlier in the week.
“Only the best is good enough.” Jack’s smile was warm and included everyone.
Benny’s hand was reaching for the butter, but she pulled back. To her fury, Bill Dunne saw her.
“Ah, go on, Benny, hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” he said, pushing the butter dish toward her.
“You should see the marvelous teas that go on the table in Benny’s house,” Jack said, trying to praise her. “I was down there not long ago and you never saw the style. Scones and savories and tarts and cakes, and that was just an ordinary day.”
“That’s the country for you. They like to feed them up down there. Not like us poor starved Town Mice,” Aidan said.
Benny looked around them. The thin blouse with the frills had been no good, nor had the blue skirt. The waft of Blue Grass that she could feel coming from under her arms and down the front of her bra. She wasn’t the kind of girl that people would admire and want to protect like they felt about Rosemary Ryan and the little loving Carmel and the pale but interesting Sheila from the Law Faculty. Benny had been brought along only as a jokey person. Someone that they’d all talk to about big feeds and being hanged for a sheep as well as a lamb.
She smiled a brave smile.
“That’s it, Aidan. You come down to Knockglen and we’ll fatten you all right. You’d be like one of those geese that they stuff so that they’ll have nice livers.”
“Benny, please.” Rosemary fluttered her lashes and looked as if she were going to come over all faint.
But Bill Dunne was now interested. “Yeah, we could be seeing Lynch’s Liver on menus.”
Jack was entering into it too. “A Knockglen speciality. Fattened fifty miles from Dublin,” he said.
“I’d have to go into hiding. They’d want me dead, not alive. God, Benny, what have you got planned out for me.”
“But think of what a delicacy you’d be,” said Benny. Her cheeks were glowing. Fattened fifty miles from Dublin. Had Jack really said that? Had he meant it as a joke about her? The most important thing was not to seem hurt.
“It’s a high price to pay.” Aidan was looking thoughtful, as if he were considering it as a serious possibility.
“I think it’s all rather awful to joke about raising poor defenseless animals to eat them,” Rosemary said, looking fragile.
Benny wished she could remember what Rosemary had ordered. But she didn’t need to. Jack did.
“Come on, that’s hypocritical,” he said. “You’ve ordered veal chops … the calves didn’t exactly enjoy getting ready to become that, now did they?”
He smiled at her across the table. The Knight who had come to her rescue.
Rosemary sulked and pouted a little, but when nobody took any notice she recovered.
Rosemary and Sheila competed all during the meal for Jack’s attention. Carmel only cared what her Sean thought of this or that item on the menu; they ate little pieces from each other’s plates. Benny entertained Bill Dunne and Aidan Lynch as if she had been a hired cabaret. She worked at it until she could feel beads of sweat in her forehead. She was rewarded with their attention and their laughter. She could see Jack straining to join in at times, but he seemed pinioned by the warring women on each side.
The less she tried to seek his attention, the more he tried to engage her in chat. It was obvious that he liked her company, but only as someone who was a load of fun. With a smile that nearly cracked her face Benny knew inside that Jack Foley liked to be where there was laughter, and good times. He wouldn’t in a million years have thought of asking someone like Benny out alone.
Simon Westward passed the table.
“See you back in Knockglen sometime,” he said to Benny.
“Who’s he? He’s rather splendid,” Rosemary asked. She seemed to be losing slightly on points to Sheila who had the advantage of being able to compare notes about lecturers with Jack. Rosemary must have decided on the making-him-jealous route.
“He’s one of the ones we didn’t manage to fatten up properly in Knockglen,” she said.
The others all laughed at this, but Jack didn’t.
“Don’t knock Knockglen,” he said softly.
He had said that before to her. This time he seemed to be saying something else.
Mossy Rooney worked on the roof of the cottage over the quarry. There had been a high wind and eleven slates had been lifted right off. They probably lay in smithereens now at the foot of the quarry.
He had been asked by Mother Francis to come urgently and repair the damage.
The nun came up and watched anxiously as he worked out what needed to be done.
“It won’t be very dear, will it Mossy?”
“Not to you Mother Francis.” His face was expressionless as always.
“But you must be paid for your work.” She looked worried.
“It won’t bankrupt you and the Order,” he said.
Never once did he hint that it was odd of the convent to maintain a small house up here that nobody used. By nothing in his tone was there any trace of surprise that a place which had seen two deaths nearly two decades ago was still kept as a kind of shrine for a young rossie who was above in Dublin getting a university education, if you don’t mind, and never came next or near the place.
Mossy wasn’t a person to speculate about things like that. And even if he were, his mind was too busy. He had another thought in it.
He might ask Patsy to meet his mother. He was collecting information about her first. He didn’t want to get into anything he might have to extricate himself from later.…
“Simon, will you come and see me at school?”
“What?” He was studying a ledger.
“You heard. You only say ‘what’ to give yourself time to think,” Heather said.
“I can’t, Heather. I have far too much to do here.”
“You haven’t,” she grumbled. “You’re always going to Dublin. Even to England. Why can’t you stop for a day and come and see me. It’s awful. You’ve no idea. It’s like a prison.”
“No it’s not, it’s perfectly all right. All school is boring. It gets better when you get older.”
“Did yours?”
“What?” He laughed. “Yes, it did. Look, the holidays come quickly. You’re having a lovely half-term now, and then you’ll be back for Christmas before you know it.” His smile was very broad.
“Haven’t we any other relations? They only let relations come.”
“Not here, you know that.”
They had cousins in England and in Northern Ireland. But Simon and Heather and their old grandfather were the only surviving members of the Westward family to live on the big estate in Westlands.
Nobody ever said it, but the crazed crying-out of Jack Malone praying that none of the family should die in their beds seemed to have been heeded. There were very few Westwards about.
“I saw your friend Benny yesterday, I expect she told you,” Aidan Lynch said to Eve as he sat patiently in Kit Hegarty’s kitchen waiting for the washing up to be finished so that they could go out.
“Take a tea towel, Einstein, and we’ll be finished quicker,” Eve said.
“She didn’t tell you then?”
“Amazingly no. You may find this hard to believe but a day passed by in the forest without a record of your movements being sent by the tom-toms.”
“I thought she might have dropped it, after all it isn’t every day one goes to the Dolphin?”
“Benny was in the Dolphin?”
“And I was, I was there, don’t forget about me.”
“It’s not easy,” Eve admitted.
“Perhaps she was covering up for me.”
Eve had lost interest in Aidan’s ramblings, she was much more curious as to what Benny had been doing in the Dolphin.
“Was she eating anything?” she inquired.
“Like a hor
se. She ate everything before her,” he said.
“I didn’t know you knew Jack Foley,” Rosemary said next day to Benny.
“Not very well.”
“Well enough for him to go to tea with you in Knockglen.”
“Oh, he was just passing through. His father had to see someone.”
Rosemary wasn’t satisfied. “Are they family friends then?”
“No. It was a nice lunch wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. Aidan Lynch is an awful eejit, isn’t he?”
“I think he’s rather nice. He takes a friend of mine to the pictures now and then. She says he’s great fun.”
Rosemary Ryan did not look convinced.
“Sean and Carmel would make you sick wouldn’t they, all that gooey stuff.”
“They seem very well settled certainly.” Benny’s eyes were dancing with mischief.
She knew the next attack would be on Sheila.
“Did you know that one, Sheila, from the Civil Law course before?”
“No.” Benny’s face was innocent. “She seemed to be very well up in all her studies. I thought they all seemed very fond of her.”
Rosemary returned to her notes in disgust. Benny noticed that she had a bar of Fruit and Nut and nibbled at it from time to time. Comfort eating is what that was. Benny knew it well.
Brian Mahon was very drunk on Friday night. Nan heard only some of it. She locked her door and turned on her radio so that she couldn’t hear what was being said. She knew her mother wasn’t a whore, and so did Paul and so did Nasey. So did her father when he was sober. But when he was drunk he seemed to want to say at the top of his voice that not only was she a whore but a frigid one and that the sooner people realized this the better. Nan also knew that her mother would never leave the home where such humiliations were forced on her with ever greater frequency.
“It’s for you, Eve.” One of Kit’s students answered the phone on Saturday morning.
“Oh, good.” Eve hoped it was Benny. Maybe she would go down to Knockglen on the lunchtime bus. Kit had said that she was free to go whenever she wanted.
But it wasn’t Benny. It was Nan.
“Can I tempt you out for a walk today?”
“Yes, that would be nice. Will I come in your way and learn a bit of that side of town? I could pick you up.”
“No.” Nan spoke sharply. Then her voice softened. “Anyway it’s much nicer out your side. We could go down the pier. I’ll pick you up.”
“Sure.”
Eve felt a vague sense of disappointment. She would have preferred it to be Benny saying she’d meet her off the bus.
Five minutes later Benny rang. But it was too late now.
“Can’t you ring Nan and tell her you’re coming home?”
“I can’t. I don’t have her number. Do you?”
“No.” Benny too had hoped that Eve would come back.
“You never told me you were at the Dolphin,” Eve challenged.
“I was going to tell you all about it.”
“Not only that, but threatening to pickle Aidan’s liver.”
“I had to say something.”
“Why?”
“They expected me to.”
“They sure as hell didn’t expect you to say that,” Eve said. “But they seemed to enjoy it. And are you back on your food again?”
“Oh yes. Patsy’s making currant bread here. You should smell it.”
Nan wore a white pleated skirt and a dark green jacket. The boys who were in the digs looked up with great interest when she came in.
Kit Hegarty too looked at her with interest. She was indeed a striking young woman. Most of all because she seemed so much in control of herself. She spoke in a low clear voice as if she expected that others would listen without her having to make any effort.
She went to Eve’s bedroom with her and Kit could hear her exclaiming with admiration.
“A sea view as well. Lord, you are lucky, Eve.”
With the familiar feeling of loss she always felt, Kit heard Eve explain, “It used to be Frank Hegarty’s room. I wanted to keep some of his things around it, but Kit said no.”
“What are you going to wear?” Nan asked.
“Why? It’s only a walk on the pier!” Eve protested.
“Everywhere’s only a walk somewhere. So that you look nice. That’s why.”
Kit Hegarty heard Eve sigh, and the door close as she changed into the red blazer and red tartan skirt which really did look nice on her, and went well with her dark coloring.
But Kit in her heart agreed with Eve. It was only a walk on the pier. Nan was making it seem like a public appearance. Maybe that’s what she did everywhere.
They walked companionably along with the crowds from Dublin, among people who had come out from Dublin City to walk off the effects of lunch or who were trying to keep children and mothers-in-law entertained.
“Look at those kids,” Nan said suddenly, pointing out a crocodile of small schoolgirls walking purposefully with two well-wrapped-up women teachers.
“What about them?” Eve asked.
“Look, one of them’s waving at you.”
Eve looked over. It was true, one of the small blue-clad figures was making great signs.
“Eve, hallo Eve,” she called behind her hand so as not to alert the schoolteachers.
“Who is she?” Nan asked.
“No idea.” Eve looked bewildered. The child was wearing a school beret and had a round face, snub nose and freckles. Then Eve saw the two bunches of hair, one on each side of the head like two jug handles.
It was Heather Westward. Simon’s little sister.
“Oh hallo,” Eve said lamely, and without much enthusiasm.
“Do you live near here?” the girl hissed at her.
“Why?” Eve was wary.
“I was wondering would you come and take me out sometime. Just for a bit?”
Eve looked at her dumbstruck. “Take you out? Where? What for?”
“Anywhere. I’d be no trouble.”
“Why me?”
“We can only go out with relations. You’re my cousin. Please?”
“I can’t. It’s not possible.”
“Yes, it is. If you phoned the school and said you’re my cousin.”
“But your brother?”
“He never comes up. He’s too busy at home. Trying to organize things.”
“Your other relations?”
“I don’t have any.”
The crocodile, which had been pausing to look at the big mail boat moored at the jetty, was now moving on. The teachers were shepherding them for the off.
“Please,” called Heather Westward.
Eve stood there wordlessly looking after them.
“Well?” Nan asked her.
“I suppose I’ll have to,” Eve said.
“Of course you will.”
“She’s only a child. You can’t disappoint a child,” Eve said crossly.
“And it would be foolish. Look at all the housepoints you’d get.”
“Housepoints?”
“Well, they’ll have to ask you to the Big House especially if you’re a friend of Heather’s. And they’ll owe you. Don’t forget that. You won’t be going cap in hand anymore.”
“I won’t go there, anyway, cap or no cap.”
“Yes you will,” said Nan Mahon firmly. “And what’s more you’ll take me with you.”
NINE
Peggy Pine regarded the arrival of her niece Clodagh as something of a mixed blessing. The girl wore very, very short skirts; she was loud and flamboyant. She had worked for two years in shops in Dublin and spent a summer in London. According to her aunt she felt herself a world authority on dress and the buying habits of the female population.
There was much about her aunt’s shop she was going to change.
“She might be a nice friend for you,” Annabel Hogan said, weighing it up. “But we should wait and see. She might be altogether too flight
y for Knockglen, from what Peggy says, and indeed from first impressions.”
“Oh, Sean up in the shop is full of disapproval of her,” Eddie Hogan observed.
“Then I like her already,” Benny chimed in.
“You need a friend now that you don’t see Eve anymore,” Annabel said.
Benny’s eyes flashed. “What do you mean Mother? Don’t I see Eve three or four times a week in College.”
“But it’s not the same,” her mother said. “She never comes home here anymore, and she has her own friends out in Dun Laoghaire in that house she works in. And there’s this Nan. You never say Eve anymore, it’s always Eve and Nan.”
Benny was silent.
“It was only to be expected,” her mother consoled. “And you’ll make lots of new contacts, where you need them. Round here.”
“Who have you asked to the dance?” Bill Dunne asked Jack as they walked out of their lecture together. One of the big College Dress Dances was coming up in a few weeks time.
“I knew your mind wasn’t on constitutional law,” Jack said.
“We have a written constitution here. No need to upset ourselves about it,” Bill said.
“All the more reason, it would appear. I haven’t done anything yet. What about you?”
“I was waiting to see who you were going to ask so that I could pick up the crumbs from the rich man’s table.”
“You’re a pain. You’re beginning to talk as obscurely as Aidan.”
“I think he’s all right. He’s going to ask Eve Malone, I think, when he gets up enough courage. She’s inclined to bite off his head. I’m more interested in knowing what you’re going to do.”
“I wish I knew.”
“Well ask somebody,” Bill begged, “and leave the field clear for the rest of us.”
That was the problem. Whom should he ask? Jack had been vague anytime Shirley phoned. He had been busy disentangling himself there, and Sheila who sat beside him at lectures had dropped fairly heavy hints. But the gorgeous Rosemary Ryan had rung him only last week saying she had two free tickets to a show, which meant of course that she had gone out and bought two tickets for a show but didn’t want him to know that.
And Nan Mahon had smiled a lot at him across the Annexe and the Main Hall and places where she had been and he had been. He would like to ask her in many ways. She was so lovely and yet so unattainable.