Circle of Friends

by Maeve Binchy

  “Sorry?”

  “Tomorrow, Sunday night. Things will have sorted themselves out here …”

  “And?”

  “And I was hoping you might come down … for the night?”

  “Well, I’d love to.” Nan smiled. At last he had invited her. It had taken some time, but he was inviting her to Westlands. She would be given a guest room. She was going there as Mr. Simon’s young lady.

  “That’s marvelous.” He sounded relieved. “You get the last bus. I’ll go to the cottage and set things up for us.”

  “The cottage?” she said.

  “Well, we know Eve’s in England.”

  There was a silence.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Suppose Heather decides to call again?”

  “No, by heavens, she’ll get a strict talking- to about respecting other people’s property.”

  He saw no irony in this at all.

  “I think not,” she said.

  “Nan?”

  She had hung up on him.

  Joseph Hegarty had made a few, but not many, friends during his years in England. They had gathered to speak well of him after his funeral.

  In the back room of a bar they sat, an ill-assorted group. A landlady who had been fond of him; whenever he didn’t have the rent, he always did so many repairs around the house, it was twenty times better than having a lodger, she confided. Eve could see the pain in Kit’s face. That Joseph Hegarty should be without the rent was bad enough, but that he should do plumbing and carpentry for a strange woman in England rather than in his own house in Dun Laoghaire was even worse.

  If the barmaid was amongst the group she did not declare herself. The whole thing had such an unreal atmosphere about it, Eve felt that they were taking part in some play. Any moment the curtain would fall and they would all start talking normally again.

  The only clue to why Joseph Hegarty might have stayed so long in this twilight world where he touched so little on people around him came from Fergus, a Mayo man, who said he was a friend.

  Fergus had left a long time ago. There had been no row, no one thing that drove him out of his smallholding in the west of Ireland. He just felt one day that he wanted to be free and he had taken a train to Dublin, and then the boat.

  His wife was now dead, his family grown. None of them wanted anything to do with him, and in many ways it was for the best. If he had gone back, he would have had to explain.

  “At least Joe saw his son last summer. That was the great thing,” he said.

  Kit looked up startled.

  “No, he didn’t. Francis never saw him since he was a child.”

  “But didn’t he write to him and all?”

  “No.” Kit’s voice was clipped.

  Eve went to stand beside Fergus the Mayoman at the bar later.

  “So he did keep in touch with his son then?”

  “Yes, I think I was out of order. The wife is very bitter. I shouldn’t have said … I didn’t know.”

  “In time she’ll be glad. In time I’ll tell her properly. And maybe she’ll want to talk to you.” She took out a diary and a pen. “Where would you be … if we wanted to get in touch?”

  “Ah, now, that’s hard to say.” The look in the eyes of Fergus became wary. He wasn’t a man who liked to plan too far ahead.

  There was a discussion with the man from the insurance, and some documents to sign. Eve and Kit went to Euston and took the train to Holyhead.

  For a long time Kit Hegarty looked out of the window and at the land where her husband had lived for so long.

  “What are you thinking about?” Eve asked.

  “About you. You were very good to come with me. Several people thought you were my daughter.”

  “I seem to have been on the phone most of the time.” Eve was apologetic.

  “Thank God it turned out all right.”

  “We don’t know that yet. They’re a weird bunch. They could send her back there. I hate being beholden to them, I really do.”

  “You don’t have to be,” said Kit. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get the insurance money is to give you a sum. You can walk back up that avenue, and throw it back. Throw it on the floor.”

  Patsy said that with all their talk about teaching them to work in a house the orphanage had been very bad at teaching them to sew.

  Mossy had said that his mother was expecting Patsy to have made a lot of things for her hope chest, like pillowcases, and hemmed them herself.

  She was struggling away in the kitchen. The trouble was that often she pricked her fingers and the nice piece of linen got stained with blood.

  “He’s mad. Can’t you buy grand pillowcases for half nothing up in McBirney’s in Dublin?” Benny said indignantly.

  But this wasn’t the point. Apparently Mrs. Rooney expected a suitable bride for Mossy to be able to turn a hem properly and sew dainty stitches. Patsy had to try harder and put up with all this nonsense because she had nothing else to bring to the marriage. No family, no bit of land, not even her father’s name.

  “Does it have to be hand done? Couldn’t it be on a machine?” Benny was worse than useless, her own stitching was in big loops, irregular and impatient.

  “What’s the difference? We haven’t a machine that works.”

  “We’ll ask Paccy to mend it. Let’s look on it as a challenge,” Benny said.

  Paccy Moore said that a horse with heavy hooves must have been using the sewing machine, and that if you had a fleet of highly paid engineers they wouldn’t be able to put it back in working order. Tell the lady of the house to throw it out, was his advice. And surely they must have had an old one years ago, one of those nice firm ones that people like Benny and Patsy couldn’t break.

  They went sadly back to Lisbeg. There wasn’t much point in telling the lady of the house anything. The listless manner hadn’t changed. They did have an old sewing machine somewhere with a treadle underneath. Benny remembered seeing it once, even playing at it. But it was useless to talk to Mother. She would try to remember and then say that her headache was coming back.

  But Benny hated to see Patsy, who had started life with so little, continue in this struggle to please.

  “You see, I can’t have bought ones Benny. The old rip gives me the material herself, just to make sure.”

  “I’ll ask Clodagh to do them for you. She loves a challenge too,” said Benny.

  Clodagh said they should both be shot for not knowing how to do a simple seam. She showed them on the machine.

  “Go on, do it yourselves,” she urged.

  “There isn’t time for that. You do it and we’ll do something in return for you. Tell us what you want us to do.”

  “Ask my aunt to lunch and keep her there all afternoon. I want to rearrange everything in the shop: if I knew someone was looking after Peg I could get a gang in to help me. When she comes back it’ll be too late to change it.”

  “When?”

  “Thursday, early closing day.”

  “And you’ll do all these pillowcases and some sheets and two bolster cases?”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Jack Foley said he was going to skip lectures on Thursday and they’d go to the pictures.

  “Not Thursday. Any other day.”

  “Bloody hell. Isn’t that the day you don’t have lectures?”

  “Yes, but I have to go back to Knockglen. There’s this great scheme …”

  “Oh, there’s always some great scheme in Knockglen,” he said.

  “Friday. I can stay the night in Dublin.”

  “All right.”

  Benny knew she would have to do something to try and smooth down Jack’s ruffled feelings. She was very much afraid it might involve doing something more adventurous in the car than they had done already.

  As Patsy said, at least three times a day, men were the divil.

  Nan had taken a risk in hanging up on Simon. She had also left the phone slightly off the h
ook in case he called again. She went angrily up to her room and lay on her bed. The freshly ironed dress hung on its hanger, her pink nails twinkled at her, she really should go out somewhere and get value from all this primping and preening.

  But Nan Mahon didn’t want to arrange a meeting with Bill Dunne, or Johnny O’Brien, or anyone. Not even the handsome Jack Foley, who had been prowling discontentedly since Benny was never around.

  Benny. Simon must have got her telephone number from Benny. He had probably pleaded with her and said it was urgent. Benny was very foolish, Nan thought. A handsome man like Jack Foley should not be left on his own in Dublin. All very well to say that the Rosemary Ryans and Sheilas knew he was spoken for. But when it came to it people often forgot loyalties. There were things more immediate than that.

  “You’re very cross,” Heather said.

  “Of course I am. Why couldn’t you have told us how awful it was.”

  Heather had, many times, but nobody had listened. Her grandfather had looked away dreamily, and Simon had said everyone hated school. You just had to grin and bear it. Mrs. Walsh had said that in her position she had to have a suitable education meeting the people she would be meeting socially later on, not the daughters of every poor fellow down on his luck which is what you’d meet in a village school.

  She hadn’t expected Simon to be so annoyed. He had been on the phone to someone and had come back in a great temper.

  “She hung up on me,” he had said, several times.

  At first Heather had been pleased to see him distracted, but she realized that it wasn’t making their conversation about her future any easier.

  “Mother Francis will talk to you about the school,” she began.

  “That’s all that bloody woman wants. First they got Eve, and now they want you.”

  “That’s not true. They took Eve because nobody else wanted her.”

  “Oh, they have you well indoctrinated, I can see that.”

  “But who did want her, Simon? Tell me.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is that we have planned an expensive education for you.”

  “It’ll be much cheaper here, much. I asked. It’s hardly anything.”

  “No. You don’t understand. It’s not possible.”

  “You don’t understand,” Heather said, twelve years of age and confronting him with her fists clenched. As she told him that she would run away every single time she was sent back to that school her eyes flashed and she reminded him suddenly of the way Eve had looked that day she came to Westlands.

  Jack seemed to have got over his bad temper. On Thursday morning he took Benny to coffee in the Annexe. She ate a corner of one of his fly cemeteries in order to prevent him from overdosing on them, and being pronounced unfit to play in the next match.

  He put his hand over hers.

  “I am a bad-tempered boorish bear, or bearish boor, whichever you like,” he had apologized.

  “It won’t be long now. I’ll have everything sorted out, I swear,” Benny said.

  “Days, weeks, months, decades?” he asked, but he was smiling at her. He was the old Jack.

  “Weeks. A very few weeks.”

  “And then you’ll be able to romp shamelessly around Dublin with me, giving in to my every base wish, and physical lust.”

  “Something like that,” she laughed.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said, looking straight at her. “You do know how much I want you, don’t you?”

  She swallowed, not able to find the right words. As it happened, she didn’t need to. Nan had approached.

  “Is this a Sean-Carmel impersonation, or can I join you for coffee?”

  Benny was relieved. Jack went back to the counter to collect it.

  “I’m not interrupting anything am I, seriously?” Nan was marvelous. You could actually ask her to take her coffee off and join another group. Nan wouldn’t mind. She was a great apostle of the solidarity between girls. But in fact it was much better not to walk any farther down a path of discussing sex.

  “I wanted Benny to come to Swamp Women but she’s stood me up,” Jack said, in a mock-mournful voice.

  “Why d’ya not go to Swamp Women with the nice gentleman, honey?” Nan asked. “I sho would in yore place.”

  “Then come with me,” Jack suggested.

  Nan looked at Benny, who nodded eagerly.

  “Oh, please do Nan. He’s been talking about Swamp Women for days.”

  “I’ll go and keep him from harm,” Nan promised.

  On their way to the cinema they met Simon Westward.

  “Have you been avoiding me?” he asked curtly.

  Nan smiled. She introduced the two men. Anyone passing by would have thought they made an extraordinarily handsome tableau standing there, two of them in College scarves, the third small, and very county.

  “We’re going to Swamp Women. It’s about escaped women prisoners and alligators.”

  “Would you like to join us?” Jack suggested.

  Simon looked up at Jack, a long glance.

  “No, thanks all the same.”

  “Why did you ask him to come with us? Because you knew he wouldn’t?” Nan asked.

  “Nope. Because I could see how much he fancied you.”

  “Only mildly I think.”

  “No, seriously I think,” Jack said.

  Because Nan knew that Simon would have turned to look after them, she took Jack’s arm companionably.

  Benny went back to Knockglen on the bus in high good humor. Jack was cheerful again. He did say he wanted her, he couldn’t have been more explicit. And now she didn’t even have to worry about him being left high and dry. Nan had gone to the silly film with him.

  All Benny had to do now was keep Peggy Pine entertained while unmentionable things went on in her shop. She knew that Fonsie, Dekko Moore, Teddy Flood and Rita were all poised. Peggy must be kept off the scene until at least five o’clock.

  When she got into Lisbeg Benny was pleased to see that Patsy had made a good soup, and there were plain scones to be served with it. Mr. Flood had sent down a small leg of lamb, there was the smell of mint sauce made in a nice china sauce boat.

  Mother wore a pale gray twinset with her black skirt, and even a small brooch at the neck. She looked more cheerful. Probably she needed company, Benny realized. She certainly seemed a lot less listless than on other days.

  Peggy drank three thimblefuls of sherry enthusiastically, and so did Mother. Benny had never known Clodagh’s aunt in better form. She told Mother that business was the best way to live your life, and that if she had her time, and her chances, all over again she would still think so.

  She confided to them, something that they already knew which was that she had been Disappointed earlier in life. But that she bore the gentleman in question no ill will. He had done her a service in fact. The Lady he had chosen did not have the look of a contented person. Peggy Pine had seen her from time to time over the years. While she in her little shop was as happy as anything.

  Mother listened interested, and Benny began to have the stirrings of hope that Peggy might be able to achieve for Mother what she had not been able to do. Peggy might make Annabel Hogan rediscover some kind of reason for living.

  “The young people are the hope you know,” Peggy said.

  Benny prayed that the transformation taking place in the shop at this moment would not be of such massive proportions as to make Peggy withdraw this view.

  “Ah, yes, we’ve been blessed with Sean Walsh,” Annabel said.

  “Well, yes, as long as you’ll be in there to keep the upper hand,” Peggy warned.

  “I couldn’t be going in interfering. He did fine in poor Eddie’s time.”

  “Eddie was there to be a balance to him.”

  “Not much of a balance I’d be,” Annabel Hogan said.

  “I don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “You’ll learn.”

  Benny saw the dangerous tr
embling of her mother’s lip. She hastened to come in and explain to Peggy, that things were a little bit up in the air at the moment. There had been a question of Sean being made a partner and that should be cleared up before Mother went into the shop.

  “Much wiser to go in before the deed is signed,” Peggy said.

  To her surprise Benny saw her mother nodding in agreement. Yes, it did make sense to go in and be shown the ropes. It didn’t look as if she was only going in afterward to make sure they got an equal share.

  And after all they might need more hands around the shop, so Sean if he was going to be a partner would prefer an unpaid one to someone who would need a wage. She told an astonished Benny and Patsy that she might go in on Monday for a few hours to see how the daily routine worked.

  Peggy looked pleased, but not very surprised.

  Benny guessed that she might have planned the whole thing. She was a very clever woman.

  Nan and Jack came out of the cinema.

  “It was terrible,” Nan said.

  “But great terrible,” Jack pleaded.

  “Lucky Benny. She’s back in Knockglen.”

  “I wish she didn’t spend so much time there.”

  They had a cup of coffee in the cinema cafe and he told her how hard it was to have a girl friend miles away.

  What would Nan do if she had a chap down in Knockglen, at the far end of civilization.

  “Well, I do,” Nan said.

  Of course, the guy in the cavalry twill and the plummy accent.

  But Jack had lost interest. He wanted to talk about Benny and how on earth they could persuade her mother to let her live in Dublin.

  He wondered was there any hope that she could have a room in Nan’s house. Nan said there was none at all.

  They said good-bye at the bus stop outside the cinema. Jack ran for a bus going south.

  Simon stepped out of a doorway.

  “I wondered if you were free for dinner?” he said to Nan.

  “Did you wait for me?” She was pleased.

  “I knew you wouldn’t see Swamp Women round a second time. What about that nice little hotel we went to in Wicklow. We might stay the night.”

  “How lovely,” Nan said, in a voice that was like a cat purring.