Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'And my mother would say there was a car like this in Coronation Street or something.' Ria laughed. 'I wonder what your parents would say if they saw it?'

Danny thought for moment. 'It would worry them. It would be too much. They'd have to put coats on and take the dog for a walk.' He sounded sad but accepting that this was the way things would always be.

'They'll become more joyful in time. We won't give up on them,' Ria said. She thought she sounded a bit like Gertie, who despite everything was not going to give up on Jack. She was actually wearing his ring now and they would marry soon. That would give him confidence, she said.

They were invited to Sunday lunch at the McCarthys. Not a big party this time, just the four of them. Barney and Danny talked buildings and property all the time. Mona and Ria talked about the baby.

'I thought about your advice, and I think I am going to stay at home and look after the baby,' Ria said.

'Will you be able to rely on grandmothers for a bit of help?'

'Not really. My mother goes out to work and Danny's parents are miles down the country.'

'But they'll come up to see the child?'

'I hope so. They're very quiet you know, not like Danny.'

Mona nodded as if she understood very well. 'They'll mellow when the baby arrives.'

'Did that happen with you too?' You could ask Mona McCarthy anything, and she never minded talking about their humble origins.

'Yes, you see Barney was very different to the rest of his family. I think his parents didn't understand why he pushed himself so hard.

They didn't do much; his father just made tea in the builder's yard all his life. But they loved it when we brought the children round at a weekend. I used to be tired and could have done without it. They never knew why Barney worked so hard and they couldn't understand his head for business. But it's different when it comes to grandchildren. Maybe it will be the same in their case.'

Ria wished this kind woman didn't have the well-groomed Polly Callaghan as a rival. For the hundredth time she wondered whether Mona McCarthy knew about the situation. Almost everyone else in Dublin did.

Danny had to go to London with Barney. Ria drove him to the airport. Just as she kissed him goodbye she saw the smart figure of Polly Callaghan get out of a taxi. Ria deliberately looked the other way.

But Polly had no such niceties; she came straight over. 'So this is the new car. Very nice too.'

'Oh hallo, Mrs. Callaghan. Danny, I'm not meant to park here, I should move off. Anyway I should be at work.'

'I’ll keep an eye on him for you in London . I won't let him get distracted by any little glamour-puss over there.'

'Thanks,' Ria gulped.

'Come on, Danny. The great man has the tickets, he'll start to fuss in a moment.' They were gone.

Ria thought of Mona McCarthy and how she had taken Barney's children every weekend to see their grandparents even though she was tired from working all week.

Life was hard on people.

Ria gave up work a week before the baby was due. They were all very supportive, these people she had not even known a year ago. Barney McCarthy said that Danny must be around Dublin , not touring the country so that he would be nearby for the birth. Barney's wife Mona said that they shouldn't waste money buying cots and prams. She had kept plenty for grandchildren; it was just that her own daughters hadn't provided her with any yet.

Barney's mistress Polly Callaghan said that Ria must know there would always be a part-time job for her when and if she wanted to come back, and gave her an outlandish pink-and-black bed-jacket to wear in hospital.

Rosemary, who had been promoted to run a bigger branch of the printing company, came to see her from time to time.

'I'm just no good at all this deep breathing and waters breaking and everything,' Rosemary apologised. 'I've no experience of it.'

'Nor I,' Ria said ruefully. 'I've never had anything to do with it either, and I'm the one who's going to have to go through with it.'

'Ah well,' Rosemary wagged her finger as if to say that we all knew why. 'Does Danny go to these prenatal classes with you? I can't imagine him…'

'Yes, he's as good as gold, it's idiotic really, but very exciting all the same; he loves it in a way.'

'Of course he does, and he'll love you too again when you get your figure back.' Rosemary was wearing her very slim-fitting trouser suit and looked like a tall elegant reed. She meant it to be reassuring, Ria thought, but because she felt like a tank herself it was unsettling.

As were the visits from pretty little Orla from the big estate agency, that would have been greatly frowned on had her bosses known of them. And Ria's mother came too, full of advice and warnings.

The only one who didn't come was Hilary. She was so envious of Tara Road that it pained her to come inside the door and see the renovations. Ria had tried to involve her in the whole business of looking for bargains at auctions, but that didn't work either. Hilary became so discontented at the size and scope of her own house compared to Ria's that the outings would end in disaster. The wonderful day when they bought the huge sideboard was almost ruined because of Hilary's tantrum.

'It's so unfair,' she said. 'Just because you have a great big empty room, you can buy great furniture dirt cheap. It's only because nobody else has these mansions that nobody wants it.'

'Well, isn't that our good luck?' Ria was stung.

'No, it's the system—you're going to get that sideboard for nothing…'

'Shush, Hilary, it's coming up in a minute. I have to concentrate. Danny says we can go to three hundred pounds—it's worth eight hundred, he thinks.'

'You're going to pay three hundred pounds for one piece of furniture for a parlour you don't even use? You're completely mad.'

'Hilary, please , people are looking at us.'

'And so well they might be looking at us, that thing could be crawling with woodworm.'

'It's not, I checked.'

'It's daft this, believe me.'

The bidding had started. Nobody was interested. One dealer that Ria knew by sight was raising it slowly against a man who ran a second-hand furniture shop. But they would both have the same problem unloading it. Whose house would have room for it?

'A hundred and fifty.' Ria's voice was clear and strong.

The others stayed in for a minute or two and then dropped out. She had the Victorian serving table, as it was described, for one hundred and eighty pounds.

'Now! Wasn't that marvellous?' Ria said, but the dead, disappointed face of her sister gave no answering flicker.

'Look, Hilary, I just saved a hundred and twenty pounds, why don't we celebrate? Isn't there something you'd like—you and Martin? Go on, we'll bid for that if there is.'

'No thank you.' The voice was stiff.

Ria thought of the huge celebration there would be in Tara Road when she told Danny the good news about the sideboard. She couldn't bear to think of her sister going back to that pokey little house, to that sad, joyless Martin. But she knew there was nothing she could do. She would have liked to stay, and with the money she had saved maybe spend fifty pounds on some nice glass. There were a couple of decanters that might go cheaply. But the mockery would be too great. Hilary would remind her that they were people who had had tomato ketchup and a bottle of Chef mayonnaise on their sideboard when they were young. Not a ship's decanter. It would take the joy out of it.

'Let's go then, Hilary,' she had said.

And since then Hilary had not been around to the house at all. It was childish and hurtful, but Ria felt that she had been given so much she could afford to be forgiving and tolerant. She wanted to see her sister and talk to her the way they used to before all this money and style got in the way.