Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

Greg decided to tell Ria that he was going to Ireland but the answering machine was on. He debated whether to leave a message and decided against it. He stood in the phone booth at Kennedy Airport and considered calling Marilyn. But suppose she told him not to come? Then they would be worse than they had ever been. His only hope was to call her and say he was in Dublin. Which he would be very soon.

He heard his flight being called. It was now too late to call his wife even if it were a good idea.

There had been no reply from Danny. Rosemary was very annoyed. She had driven him to the airport, he was in a house with an e-mail facility, a telephone. He would have known what to make of that cryptic piece in the paper. He would be tired of playing Happy Families and trying to bolster up Ria. Why didn't he call her? Rosemary told herself, as she had told herself many times before, this was not going to continue.

What she felt for Danny Lynch was neither sensible nor in any game plan. It was in fact the most basic urge imaginable. No other man would do. She had put up with sharing him with Ria for years, and with others like that disgusting Orla King. She had even put up with the infatuation for the wraith-like Bernadette. But he had always been civil and courteous before. He wasn't even that these days.

She was glad that she had not rescued him; she was just quivering with curiosity to know who had. The woman who wrote this column in the Irish Times was very informed. It would not be a flyer, something deliberately planted. Rosemary believed that Danny Lynch and Barney McCarthy were genuinely going to be pulled out of the fire. All she needed to know was by whom.

'Frances, you know the way I told you never to tell Jack I did a bit of cleaning for you?' Gertie said.

'And I never have,' Frances Sullivan said.

'No, but things have changed now. Now I do need him to know I come here, you see he thinks I get the money somewhere else.'

'Yes, but surely he won't come and ask me?' Frances looked fearful.

'No, but suppose he does, it's all right now, I'd prefer him to think that this is where I get the money.'

'Yes, Gertie.' Like a lot of people Frances was becoming increasingly wearied by the menacing presence of Gertie's Jack Brennan in her life.

'Thanks, Frances, I'll just go and tell Marilyn and then Polly and it will all be out of the way.'

Marilyn was in the front garden in jeans and T-shirt. She looked very young and fit for her years, Gertie thought.

'I hate having to burden you with my problems.'

'Sure, what is it, Gertie?' Marilyn listened and with great difficulty controlled her impatience. In her newly directive mood, she could easily have urged Gertie not to be so foolish, such a hapless victim encouraging more senseless violence and even neglecting her own children in the process. But one look at that haunted face made Marilyn retreat from any such action. 'Right,' she sighed. 'It's okay this week to tell him, let me know if it changes next week.'

'You're lucky and strong, Marilyn, I'm neither, but thank you.' She left to go to the bus stop across the road. Polly Callaghan was the third person she must warn.

Rosemary drew up her car. 'Can I drive you anywhere, Gertie?'

'I was going over to Polly, I wanted to give her a message.'

'She's in London, back after the weekend.'

'Well I am glad I met you. Thanks, Rosemary, you saved me a trip, I'll just walk up home then.'

'They did invent a telephone system, you know, you could have called her,' Rosemary said. It sounded somehow very dismissive and cruel.

'Are you cross with me about something, Rosemary?'

'No, I'm in a bad mood. Sorry, I didn't mean to bark.'

'That's all right.' Gertie never held a grudge for long. 'Man trouble is it?'

'What kind of man trouble do you think I might have?' Rosemary asked with some interest.

'I don't know, choosing between them I imagine,' Gertie shrugged.

'No, it's not that. I'm sort of restless, I don't know why, and people are being difficult. Your woman in there hasn't spoken to me for ages. What did I do to get up her nose?'

'I don't know. I thought you were great friends, going to fashion shows and all together.'

'Yes we were, that was the last time she spoke to me,' Rosemary said in wonder.

'So was there any coldness?'

'None at all. She drove me home… I didn't ask her in.'

'Well, she'd not be sulking about that.'

Rosemary remembered back to the night, and Danny coming to the summerhouse. But there was no way, no possible way that Marilyn could have… She pulled herself together. 'You're absolutely right, Gertie, I'm imagining it. All well at home?'

'Oh fine, thank you, just fine,' said Gertie who was relieved that Rosemary wasn't really interested anyway.

They slept wrapped up together as they had done for years in Tara Road. When Ria woke she knew she must not stir. So she lay there going back over all the events of the day and evening. She could see the time; it was eleven o'clock at night. She would like to get up, have a shower, and make them both an omelette. Together they would sit and talk about what was to be done. They would make their plans as they had long ago. And it was all going to be all right. Money wasn't important. Even the house they had built up together could be replaced. They could get another one, a smaller one. But she would take no initiative, she would lie there until he moved.

She pretended to be asleep when he got out of bed, picked up his clothes and went to the bathroom. When she heard the shower being turned on she joined him there with a towel wrapped around her. She sat down on one of Marilyn's cork-and-wrought-iron bathroom chairs. She would let him speak first.

'You're very quiet, Ria,' he said.

'How are you ? she said. There would be no more taking the initiative. The wrong initiative.

'Where do we go now?' he asked.

'A shower, a little supper?'

He seemed relieved. 'Sandalwood?' he said of the soap.

'You like it, don't you?'

'Yes I do.' He seemed sad about something, she didn't know what. He went to his own room to get clothes. She followed him into the shower, then put on yellow trousers and a black sweater.

'Very smart,' he said as they met in the kitchen.

'Annie says I look like a wasp in this outfit.'

'Annie! What does she know?'

They were walking on eggshells. Not a mention of what had happened. Or of what might happen next. Nor did they talk of Barney McCarthy or Bernadette, or the future or the past. But somehow they filled the time quite easily. Together they made a herb omelette and a salad; they each drank a glass of wine from the fridge. They ignored the message light winking on the answering machine. Whoever it was could be dealt with tomorrow.

And when it was half past midnight, they went back to bed. In the big double bed that belonged to Greg and Marilyn Vine.

The phone kept ringing, as if someone was refusing to accept that there was nobody going to take the call.

'Technology,' yawned Danny.

'Hubie Green, desperate for our daughter's telephone number,' giggled Ria.

T'll get coffee for us. Will I put whoever it is out of their misery?' Danny suggested.

'Do, of course.' Ria was chirpy and cheerful as she heard the message tape winding backwards. Anything at all he did was all right with her today. She was just pulling on her swimsuit, ready to go to the pool, when she heard the fevered voice on the answering machine. 'Danny, I don't care what time it is, or Ria or whoever is there, you've got to pick up, you have to. This is an emergency. Please pick up, Danny. It's Finola here. Bernadette's been taken to hospital, Danny, she's had a haemorrhage. She's calling out for you. You've got to talk to me, you've got to come home.'