Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

Brian was practising his basketball at the net.

'Perhaps I could take you to New York City?' Hubie asked.

'I'd better not. Mam wants to show it to us herself, it's a big deal for her.'

'Do you never say no to her, Annie, and do what you want to do?' Hubie wanted to know.

'Yes I do, quite a lot. But not at the moment. Things are hard for her. My dad went off, you see, with someone not much older than me, it must make her feel a hundred.'

'Sure I know. But somewhere else then?' He was very eager that they should have a date.

'Look, Hubie, I'd love to but not at the moment, we've just got here, okay?'

'Okay.'

'And another thing, I was writing to Marilyn and Mam said I wasn't to say you come here.'

'Marilyn?'

'Mrs. Vine. This is her house, you know that.'

'You call her Marilyn?'

'That's what she wanted.'

'You like her?'

'Yes, she's terrific.'

'You're so wrong. You have no idea how wrong you are, she's horrible and she's mad.' Hubie got up and gathered his things. 'I have to go now,' he said.

'I'm sorry you're going. I like you being here but I have no idea what all this is about.'

'Think yourself lucky.'

'I know you were with Dale when the accident happened, my mother told me, but that's all. And I'm not going to say that Marilyn is horrible and mad just to please you, that would be weak and stupid.' Annie had stood up too, eyes flashing.

Hubie looked at her in admiration. 'You're really something,' he said. 'Do you know what I'd really like?'

Annie never discovered what Hubie would really have liked just then because at that moment Brian arrived on the scene. 'You were very quiet up here, I came to see were you necking,' he said.

'What?' Hubie looked at him, startled.

'Necking, snogging, you know, soul kissing. What do you call it here in America exactly?' He stood there, his shoulders and face red, his spiky hair sticking up and his round face as always interested in something entirely inappropriate.

'Hubie…' said Annie in a dangerously level voice '… is just leaving and the way things are he may never come back.'

'Oh, I most definitely will be back,' said Hubie Green. 'And as a matter of interest I would like you to know that the way things are is just fine with me.'

'Hubie fancies Annie,' Brian said at lunch.

'Of course he does. He fancied her before he met her, he was always looking at that photograph.'

'That's nonsense, Mam. Stop encouraging Brian.' Annie was pink with pleasure from it all.

'Well, we need Hubie here tonight, so you'll have to use all your powers of persuasion to get him to come over.'

'Sorry, Mam, impossible.'

'I need him, Annie. I want him to design a poster for my cakes on the computer.'

'No way, Mam, he'll think I put you up to it.'

'No, he won't. It will be a professional job, I'll pay him.'

' Mam , he'll think you're paying him to come and visit me. It would be terrible. It's not going to happen.'

'But it's my job, Annie, I need him here,' she stopped suddenly. 'I’ll tell you… suppose you go out somewhere then he can't think that you're after him, can he?'

Annie thought about it. 'No, that's true.'

'In fact it might be playing hard to get, he'd wonder where you might be.'

'And where would I be, Mam?'

Ria paused to think up a solution to this problem and then suddenly it came to her. 'You could go to work in Carlotta's salon for two or three hours, you know, folding towels, sterilising hairbrushes, sweeping up, making coffee… you know the kind of thing?'

'Would she let me?'

'She might if I asked her nicely, as a favour for tonight, since I know you want to be out of the house.'

'Please, Mam, would you? Please?'

Ria went to the telephone. Carlotta had suggested it days back, but Ria knew better nowadays than to tell her daughter straight out. She came back from the phone. 'Carlotta says yes.’

'Mam, I love you,' Annie cried.

Barney McCarthy said he would meet Danny any place and any time. How could there be hard feelings about what was said last night? By either of them. They had both been in shock, they knew each other far too well for mere words to create a barrier. They met in Stephen's Green and walked around the park where children were playing and lovers were dawdling. Two men walking, hands clasped behind their backs, talking about their futures and their past.

On the surface they were friends. Danny said that he would never have had the start in business without Barney McCarthy. Barney said he owed Danny a great deal for his insights and hard work, not to mention his quick thinking the night of the heart attack in Polly's flat.

'How's Polly taking it?' Danny asked.

'On the chin, you know Poll.' They both thought for a few moments about the elegant dark-haired woman who had let any chance of marriage pass her by just waiting in the background for Barney. 'Of course she's still young, Poll,' Barney said.

'And with no dependants,' Danny agreed. There was another silence. 'Have you told Mona?' Danny asked.

Barney shook his head. 'Not yet.'

He looked at Danny. 'And Ria?'

'Not yet.'

And then they walked in silence because there was nothing left to say.

'I think Sean is greatly taken with your Annie,' Sheila said on the telephone.

'I know, isn't it amazing?' Ria said. 'It only seems such a short time since they were both in prams, now they're talking romance.'

'I guess we'll have to keep an eye on them.'

'Much good it did anyone keeping an eye on us,' Ria laughed.

'But we weren't as young as they are,' Sheila said. 'I don't expect Annie's on the pill?'

Ria was shocked. 'Lord no, Sheila. For heaven's sake, she's not sixteen yet. I was only talking about kissing at the cinema and all that.'

'Let's hope that's all they're talking about too. Anyway you're coming to stay with us the weekend after next.'

'Indeed we are.'

Ria was troubled by this conversation, but she hadn't much time to think too deeply about it. The orders for her alumni cakes were unprecedented, they had to take on extra help in the shop, and she had to organise the house for her guests and prepare a huge buffet lunch for the friends of Greg and Andy Vine while trying to keep a low profile so that Marilyn's nose would not be put out of joint by it all. Apparently Marilyn had served olives and pretzels any time people came at alumni weekend.

And she had to make sure that the children had activities. Oddly, Annie and Brian were the least of her worries. Brian had found a new friend called Zach four houses away, and had taken to wearing a baseball cap backwards and using phrases he didn't understand at all. Hubie was always calling for Annie and taking her out to see cultural things, and since it was always in broad daylight Ria could not object. Every afternoon at four o'clock Annie went to Carlotta's salon, and came home with amazing stories about the clientele. Ria had rented a chest freezer for a week and she cooked, labelled and stored way into the night.

As she was going to bed at 2 a.m. on the Thursday before the big weekend she remembered suddenly that she hadn't thought about Danny all day. She wondered could it be that she was getting over him, but then when his face did come back to her, the whole bitter loss was as hurtful, lonely and sad as ever. She missed him as much as she always had, it was just that she had been too busy to think about it until now. Maybe this was as good as it was ever going to get.

Marilyn brought a cup of coffee out to Colm in the garden. 'What are you on today?' she asked.

'Sweet fennel,' he said. 'It's only to please myself, prove I can grow it. Nobody asks for it much in the restaurant.' He grinned ruefully.